Release Notes - SmartOffice Pro Singapore Edition 10.1.9.18

About This Document

For general information about SmartOffice release notes, visit the Release Notes home page.

Revision History

These release notes may be revised after their initial publication. This section lists the dates of any revisions as well as a list of changes.

January 30, 2018

• Initial publication.

Release Overview

SmartOffice Pro features a completely updated look, support for Google Chrome and several important usability enhancements.

Enhancement Highlights

This section provides quick links to the featured enhancements in this release.

Core System

• Updated look and streamlined navigation

• Expanded browser support

• Password security improvements

• Changes to correspondence, document and other workflows

• Correspondence Wizard changes

• More custom fields

• SmartOffice Anywhere

• Enhanced page layout customization

• Global search

• Calculated columns

• Activity outcome alerts

Agency Management System

• Improved presale activity-pending case integration

• SmartView Case Status enhancements

• New advisor mass operations

• Parent and child presale records

• Page layout customization for policy records

• Ability to mass assign an additional advisor to multiple policies

• Improved control over new requirements

• Informal application improvements

• More flexible Issued/Delivery workflows

• Advisor compliance enhancements

• Expanded employee census records

• Mass operations for advanced commission splits

• Batch information in carrier posting lists

Wealth Management

• Quick access to records linked to asset allocation models

• Performance calculation improvements

• Account group improvements

• Page layout control for accounts and positions

• Cost column changes in investment reports

• On-access validation improvements

• Personal holdings workflow enhancement

System Requirements

The system requirements for SmartOffice have changed with this release. The most significant changes are:

• Dropped support for Internet Explorer 10. SmartOffice Pro is compatible with Internet Explorer 11 or later.

• Added support for the latest version of Google Chrome.

Important: This release of SmartOffice also requires the latest version of the SmartOffice desktop integration for correspondence, document management, list export and other workflows involving Microsoft Windows and Office. To obtain the latest version, sign in to SmartOffice, and then select Setup > Installations from the side menu.

For detailed system requirements, see System Requirements.

Note Regarding Text Changes in SmartOffice

This release may contain minor changes to text in dialog boxes and other areas of the SmartOffice user interface. Changes of this type are typically made to correct spelling, grammar, punctuation and other language-related issues. Such changes normally are not listed in this document unless they affect the way the application works.

SmartOffice Pro Changes

Core System

Featured Enhancements

Updated Look and Streamlined Navigation

The look of SmartOffice has been updated throughout with a more modern color scheme and icons. In addition, pop-up windows have been largely eliminated, and several adjustments to navigation have been made to help users access features more quickly. The key changes are summarized below.

Feature

What's New

Quick Action Corner/Alert Center

The appearance of the Quick Action Corner in the upper-left corner was updated with new icons and is now more compact in size.

The Quick Action Corner retains its calendar and task features, but the Alert Center button was removed. To access the Alert Center, use the new Alert Center button at the top of any page.

Search Box

The Search box at the top of all pages functions much like it did in previous SmartOffice versions, except that the Detailed Search link has been renamed Advanced Search and is now located to the right of the Search box. In addition, the search drop-down list is organized into submenus.

Side Menu

The Side Menu can now be collapsed to display only icons. This enhancement allows users to expand the main content area for viewing records, lists, reports and other content.

Add New Menu

The Add New menu, which enables users to quickly create records of various types, is now accessible using the plus button at the top of any page.

Options Menu

The Options menu found on many pages is now accessed using a more compact options button  that frees space in section title bars for additional custom buttons.

Global Hyperlinks

The Global Hyperlinks in the upper-right corner (Home, Settings, Sign Out and Help/Training) have been replaced with a comprehensive profile menu, which you can access by clicking your name.

This menu provides more direct access to help, training and billing resources. It is also contains new buttons for signing out , accessing user and office settings and navigating to your home page and dashboards .

Buttons

Buttons throughout SmartOffice Pro have been updated as part of the visual redesign. Here are a few examples of the new buttons for commonly used commands:

• Save

• Delete

• New Record

• Previous

• Next

• View SmartPad Notes

• New SmartPad Note

• Run Reports (PDF)

• Run Dynamic Reports

To quickly determine the function of any unfamiliar button, point to it to reveal its ToolTip.

Expanded Browser Support

SmartOffice Pro is compatible with the latest versions of these desktop web browsers:

• Internet Explorer

• Google Chrome

Password Security Improvements

Password management has been enhanced to help users create stronger passwords and recover forgotten passwords more securely and reliably.

• Predefined password reminder questions: Instead of requiring users to create their own password reminder questions, SmartOffice now presents a list of questions and asks users to select one. As part of this change, the Basic Info section in User Preferences now displays a drop-down list containing the predefined questions instead of a blank text field. (PMG-170529)

• Special characters in passwords: Users can now strengthen their SmartOffice passwords by using special characters, such as punctuation marks, in addition to alphabetic and numeric characters. Special characters are optional for SmartOffice Online users. Organizations that manage their own SmartOffice deployments can make special characters mandatory by setting the content of the element in their server’s config.xml file to true. (PMG-156364)

• Prompt to enter missing security information: When a user’s account has no e-mail address, security question or security answer, SmartOffice how displays a dialog box at sign-in that requires the user to provide all three pieces of information. This change also simplifies the normal password-change workflow that occurs when a user’s password expires or is reset, because the Password Change dialog box no longer requires the user’s security answer. (PMG-170529)

Changes to Correspondence, Document and Other Workflows

When using the following workflows in SmartOffice Pro, user are now prompted to download and open a special .sopro configuration file:

• Sending correspondence

• Viewing and uploading documents

• Exporting lists

• Using analytic (Excel) reports

• Printing labels

The SmartOffice desktop integration installed on the user's computer opens the .sopro file to complete the workflow. For that reason, the user must be signed in to the desktop integration to use these SmartOffice workflows. In most instances, SmartOffice signs the user in to the desktop integration automatically. If necessary, users can sign in manually by clicking the new Login Desktop Integration button or selecting the Login Desktop Integration command from the profile menu.

(PMG-294592, PMG-642339, PMG-642549, PMG-644756, PMG-646917, PMG-663153)

Correspondence Wizard Changes

The changes in SmartOffice workflows related to the desktop integration altered the way in which the Correspondence Wizard functions. Now, after a user selects letter options and clicks the final Continue button, a message explains that the user must download and open the .sopro file.

When the user opens the file, a Correspondence dialog box opens in Windows. From here, the user can complete the process of viewing, editing and/or printing the letter.

 (PMG-617437, PMG-617439)

More Custom Fields

The number of custom fields in SmartOffice records was expanded to allow customers to track even more custom data. In any record containing a Custom content link, users will now find a total of 90 alphanumeric fields, 30 numeric fields, 61 date fields, 25 lookup fields, 30 integer fields and 30 yes/no fields.

As part of this enhancement, SmartOffice Pro also features merge codes for all of these custom fields, enabling users to include any of those fields in SmartOffice correspondence. (PMG-665766, PMG-684095)

SmartOffice Anywhere

To boost compatibility with more devices and platforms, Ebix has created SmartOffice Anywhere, a browser-independent, mobile-friendly version of the application. SmartOffice Anywhere lets users access SmartOffice data using any major Web browser (e.g., Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Android Browser, Firefox, Opera) on both desktop and mobile platforms, including Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

Based on HTML5, SmartOffice Anywhere features a light, modern look and feel that automatically adapts to the user’s screen size. The application provides an optimal user experience whether it is viewed on a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone.

SmartOffice Anywhere is free to all SmartOffice users. Administrators can control access to the SmartOffice Anywhere application for each user account by selecting or clearing the new SmartOffice Anywhere user right, located on the user account User Rights content link.

Users who are signed in to SmartOffice Pro can access SmartOffice Anywhere without having to sign in separately. To do so, open the profile menu and select SmartOffice Anywhere.

For more information, see SmartOffice Anywhere Help.

(PMG-253091, PMG-633445)

Enhanced Page Layout Customization

Users with page layout customization rights now have greater control over the information displayed in contact records as well as the arrangement of that information on the page.

Previously, the page layout customization feature enabled users to select only from SmartOffice’s collection of preconfigured portlets (i.e., groups of fields) and arrange their positions on the page. Now, in addition to using preconfigured portlets, users can create their own portlets, define the fields they contain, specify the order of those fields and even customize the field labels. All of these tasks are accomplished using an enhanced page layout dialog box.

In place of the Templates drop-down list featured in previous releases, the dialog box now contains tabs across the top that make viewing and managing page layout templates easier.

The access the page layout dialog box, open a supported record type—contact, business, advisor, agency, pending case, opportunity, investment account or investment position—and select Menu > Page Layouts.  (PMG-137904)

Global Search

With global search, SmartOffice users can quickly search records across most major areas of the system, including contacts, activities, policies, investments and more. Global search accepts search queries in any format; users are not limited to using the “last name, first name” format.

To use this feature, select Global Search from the Search drop-down list. Type a search query of at least three characters, and SmartOffice dynamically displays links to matching records. Click these links to access the records directly, or click one of the other options at the bottom of the menu.

A Global Search user right was added to the system to let administrators control access to the feature. The new user right is located in the Advanced Contact Management Features section on the User Rights content link.

Users can also continue to use classic SmartOffice search from the Search drop-down list and other areas of the system. (PMG-263585, PMG-553216)

Calculated Columns

SmartOffice now lets users create columns whose values are automatically calculated using values from other columns.

To use this feature, a user must have the Calculated Columns Setup user right enabled for his or her user account. A SmartOffice administrator can enable this user right for the user. Once the user right is enabled, the user sees an Add button on the list layout customization dialog box.

Clicking that button opens a list of calculated columns that have been created. To create a calculated column, select Menu > New ‘Calculated Columns’ record from that list, and then select the category containing the columns that will be used for the calculation. The New Calculated Column dialog box opens.

Enter a name and optional description for the new column, and then use the buttons in the Calculated Columns section to select the columns that will be used for the calculation. In addition to columns, flat numerical values can be inserted into the calculation.

When finished, click the OK button to return to the list of calculated columns. Then click the new column’s name to insert it into the list layout.

(PMG-164188)

Other Enhancements

General

• New column for Deleted Records List: On the Deleted Records List (Utilities > Deleted Records), users with the appropriate rights can now customize the layout to add the Inv Value column from the Contact Benefit table. (PMG-144048)

• Office-level sign-out redirect: Administrators at the office level can now specify a Web address that users in the office will be automatically redirected to when they sign out of SmartOffice. The address can be specified using the new SLO URL field, located at the bottom of the office Detail content link in Office Settings. (PMG-267225)

• License-dependent policy/investment options: In User Preferences, availability of the options on the Policies/Investments content link is now tied to the licenses enabled on the user’s account. The Policy Types, Group Policy Types and Investment Types sections now display only when the user has the appropriate module licenses enabled. (PMG-282544)

• Tree list export: When the Tree list layout is used in the SmartPad and on the business Employee Census content link, users can now use the Export List command to export the list data. Note that the data is exported without the tree structure and without any sorting. (PMG-296586)

• “Remove Functionality” user rights renamed and reorganized: The Remove Functionality section on the user account User Rights content link has been removed, and the user rights in that section have been renamed and moved to other sections. This change makes user right selection more intuitive; selecting these rights now enables features instead of disabling them. The following table summarizes these changes.

Old User Right Name

New Name

New Section

Remove Timer Functionality

Timer Functionality

Office Setup Options

Remove SmartPad Functionality

SmartPad

Advanced Contact Management Features

Disable Alert Button

Alerts

Office Setup Options

Remove Access to Advisors & Agencies

Advisors & Agencies

Advanced Advisor Management Features

Remove New (Comprehensive) Functionality

New (Comprehensive)

Office Setup Options

Remove Household Functionality

Households

Advanced Contact Management Features

Remove Letters/Documents Content Link

Letters/Documents

 Advanced Contact Management Features

Remove Set Functionality

Sets

Advanced Contact Management Features

Remove Change Password Button

Change Passwords

Additional Administrator Functions

Remove SmartSearch Access

SmartSearch

 Office Setup Options

Remove Case Status Option from Side Menu

Case Status Reports

 Reporting Options

(PMG-342528)

• Support for TLS over SMTP: For offices that are configured to send e-mail through a custom SMTP server, SmartOffice now supports the use of Transport Layer Security (TLS) for more secure data transmission. In Office Settings, on the Detail content link, administrators can enable TLS by selecting the Yes option from the new TLS Encryption drop-down list, located under SMTP Settings - Form Letters (Send Locally). (PMG-343256)

• Reworded security warnings: Two warnings that users receive based on office security policies were reworded for improved clarity:

- When users try to sign in outside the allowed access hours, the message now says, “You cannot sign in to SmartOffice outside the normal access hours set by your administrator.”

- When users try to sign in from an IP address outside of the allowed address range, the message now says, “You cannot sign in to SmartOffice from your current IP address. Contact your administrator for assistance.”

(PMG-545846)

• List grouping by week: SmartOffice lists can now be grouped by week. To do this, create a custom sort that includes any date column. Select the date column and choose the Use as List Grouping option. Then select the new Week option from the Date Grouping drop-down list. (PMG-551612)

• Compliance View: To aid in forensic analysis of data for legal and compliance requirements, enterprise customers can now give SmartOffice administrators the right to view all data in SmartOffice without restriction. A new user right named Compliance View allows an administrator to access data regardless of record privatization, user assignments, user rights and user proxies. This user right can be assigned only from the System office. In addition, the user assigning the right and the user being assigned the right must have the Administrator: User Rights & Creation/Licenses/Groups user right. (PMG-559754)

• More configuration options for new-office welcome e-mail: Enterprise customers now have additional options for configuring the support information that appears in the welcome e-mail message sent to administrators of new offices. In the server config.xml file, users can configure the support company's name, phone number, e-mail address and team name, as well as whether support information is displayed at all. The following elements were added to config.xml as child elements of the element:

(PMG-609969)

• Proxy creation/modification date columns: In lists that provide access to columns in the Proxy table (e.g., the Proxy content links in user accounts), user can now add the CreatedOn and ModifiedOn columns to display those dates. (PMG-656696)

• Document viewing without desktop integration: A new configuration setting (for enterprise customers only) allows all users on a SmartOffice server to view documents without having to install the SmartOffice desktop integration on their computers. When this setting is enabled, documents stored in SmartOffice open in read-only mode. Server administrators can enable this setting by editing the server config.xml file to change the content of the element, which is a child of the element, to true. For example:  

true

(PMG-657252)

• Changes for default landing page settings: On the Basic Info content link in User Preferences, users can now configure their default landing page for SmartOffice Anywhere as well as SmartOffice Pro. In addition, the landing page options are now labeled as follows for clarity:

- Default location at sign-in (SOPRO)

- Default location at sign-in (SO Anywhere)

(PMG-664806)

• Activity reminder improvements: When users sign in, SmartOffice now checks for past activity reminders going back only two weeks and going forward one day. Previously, the system was checking for all past activity reminders, which was causing sign-in delays. This change optimizes the sign-in process. (PMG-675652)

• Editable Office Code field: In Office Settings, the Office Code field on the office Detail content link can now be edited. Previously, customers had to submit a request to Ebix to modify this field. This enhancement primarily benefits enterprise customers who need to alter this value for DataXchange Enterprise operations. (PMG-678917)

• Update history on About page: The About page, accessible from the profile menu, now includes a Patch History section. This section lists the ID numbers of updates that have been applied to the SmartOffice server. (PMG-681676)

• List refresh option removed: The Disable Refresh option was removed from the List Layout Customization dialog box because it is no longer necessary. Unlike earlier versions of SmartOffice, SmartOffice Pro automatically refreshes lists to reflect any changes to records. (PMG-683388)

Alert Center

• Alert Center display enhancement: In the Alert Center section of User Preferences, the Number of days' worth of alerts to display drop-down list now contains several additional options to provide users with more flexibility. The default is now 90 days. (PMG-642548)

Contact Management

• Easier access to employee contact records: When viewing the details of an employee census record, users can now open the associated contact record quickly by clicking the employee’s name. (PMG-298632)

• Larger maximum character count for e-mail/web address remarks: In e-mail and web address entries, the maximum character count of the Remarks field was increased to 2,048 characters. Previously, the maximum was 120. (PMG-658869)

• Database enhancement for deleted contacts: A RESTORELOG table was added to the SmartOffice database to record which user restored a contact from the Deleted Records area of the system. (PMG-666990)

• Contact deletion restriction for linked user accounts: SmartOffice no longer allows the deletion of a contact or advisor record linked to a user account. This enhancement resolves an issue in offices that have Protect Communication History enabled. Previously, in those offices, deleting the contact/advisor was archiving the contact and rendering the linked user account inaccessible. (PMG-675781)

• Contact export improvements: Improvements were made to the process of exporting contacts to other offices. When multiple contacts with key relationships are exported from the source office during the same SmartOffice session, those contacts and relationships are now reconstructed in the target office. (PMG-710789)

Correspondence

• Do Not SMS option: On the contact Add’l Personal content link, a new Do Not SMS option under Communication Privacy enables users to specify that the contact should not receive mobile text messages sent through SmartOffice. (PMG-307403)

• New merge codes: The following contact-related merge codes were added to the system:

- F\_CN\_CONTACTTYPE: This merge code expands to display the contact type.

- F\_PE\_SPOUSEDRIVERLICNO: This code displays the driver license number of the selected contact's spouse.

- F\_PE\_SPOUSEDRIVERLICEXP: This code displays the driver license expiration date of the selected contact's spouse.

(PMG-537870, PMG-671581)

• Renamed attachment options: Two changes related to attachment preferences for e-mail correspondence were made:

- In User Preferences - Correspondence Options, under E-mail Attachment Options, the RTF option was renamed MS Word.

- In Step 4 of the Correspondence Wizard, the RTF option in the Send form letter as e-mail attachment drop-down list was renamed MS Word.

(PMG-666219)

• Ability to control overrides in Correspondence Wizard: Enterprise customers can now specify whether their users can override recipient problems detected by the Correspondence Wizard. The element under the element in the server config.xml file determines whether the Override button appears in the Validate & Send step of the wizard. Setting the element to false removes the button from the wizard:

   false

(PMG-719319)

Data Import/Export

• Data import improvements for addresses and phone numbers: When importing a file containing residence and business addresses, SmartOffice can now import both (previously, only business addresses were imported). Also, when the import file contains residence and business phone numbers, residence numbers are now set as the preferred numbers in SmartOffice. (PMG-190333)

• Contacts as default import option: To minimize confusion for users creating import setups using the Data Import Wizard, the default type for imported records is now Contact Record instead of Advisor Record. This change reflects the fact that most SmartOffice data import operations involve contact records. (PMG-546273)

Dynamic Reports

• Dynamic Report redirection: Enterprise customers who manage their own SmartOffice servers can now enable a new server-level configuration option that redirects all Dynamic Report generation, printing and export requests to SmartOffice’s report instance. By directing these report functions away from the application instance, this option can improve overall application performance. (PMG-270584)

• New report category for finding contacts with inactive advisors: A new report category called Inactive Advisors Contact was added to the Other family of Dynamic Reports. Reports in this category can be used to generate a list of contacts who are not assigned to any Active-status advisors. (PMG-279794)

• Option to show Dynamic Reports in SmartOffice Anywhere: On the Details/Add Filter step of the Dynamic Report Setup wizard, a new option allows the user to specify whether a report is available in SmartOffice Anywhere. (PMG-289057)

• SFTP upload for e-mailed Dynamic Reports: Enterprise customers now have access to a server configuration option that can be used to store e-mailed Dynamic Reports for later transfer to an FTP site. As part of this enhancement, the following elements were added to the server’s config.xml file:

     /example/path

     true

When the content of is true, SmartOffice automatically copies all e-mailed Dynamic Reports to the server directory specified in . The server administrator then provides Ebix with the appropriate FTP server information, and Ebix prepares the appropriate script to upload the files using SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). (PMG-311478)

• Improved reliability for automatic report e-mailing: Enhancements were made to SmartOffice so that extended maintenance periods no longer interfere with the automatic e-mailing of Dynamic Reports. Previously, if a maintenance period extended past a certain length, some reports were not being sent.

As part of this enhancement, enterprise customers can now configure SmartOffice so that, if the SmartOffice server is restarted within a certain time window, the SERVICELOG table is checked to ensure that the report e-mailing service completed successfully during the previous 24 hours. If this check reveals that the report e-mailing service did not complete, the service is restarted. The time window can be set using the and elements under in the server config.xml file, as shown in the following example:

   false

   com.ezdata.cdsportal.data.dynreport.EmailDynRpt

   1:45   2:00

   4:00   US/Pacific

   6

(PMG-692174)

• Report printing improvement: When users print the results of a Dynamic Report, the printout no longer includes the text "Dynamic Report" in the title by default. (PMG-709900)

PDF Reports

• Ability to hide PDF reports from specific offices: Organizations that have access to the System office can now specify which offices have access to a particular PDF report. From the System office, open the report’s setup to find the new Permissions section. In that section, use the drop-down list to specify whether the report should be available in all offices, available in the offices listed or excluded from the offices listed. Then select Options > Add More Offices to add offices to the list. In the offices themselves, the Shared Office Name column, which can be added to PDF report lists, displays the names of the other offices that have access to the report. (PMG-159055, PMG-273615)

• Improved data source restrictions for PDF reports: The report setup pages for the Client Detail and Business Detail PDF reports now have the Restrict Source of Data for Investment records To and Restrict Source of Data for Policy records To check boxes and drop-down list options. In addition, for all PDF reports that have these check boxes, the All choice was removed from the drop-down lists because it had the same effect as simply clearing the check boxes. (PMG-212753)

• Report package enhancements: Several improvements were made to the system’s handling of processed PDF report packages:

- Reports generated from a report package linked to an investment account set are now posted to the Letter/Documents content link of each account in the set.

- The Processed Reports Log now contains three new columns: Package Type, Package ID and Job Type.

- After a report package is submitted for processing, SmartOffice now displays a detailed message explaining how to view the generated reports, where the reports were posted and how they can be deleted. The information is specific to the report set type linked to the package.

- On the Processed Report Log, the Remove report(s) from Letters/Documents tab command previously available in the Menu button is now located in the Options menu.

(PMG-228723)

• Enhanced PDF report package posting: When certain categories of PDF reports are generated from report packages and automatically posted to the Letters/Documents content link of a contact, SmartOffice now automatically assigns a document category to each report so that it also appears under the appropriate Document List tab. The following table describes the category assignments.

PDF Report Category

Document List Category

Contact

Personal

Investment, Performance, Account Master, Transaction or Dollar Weighted Returns

Investment

Policy, Group Policy, Pending Case Report, Holding Statement (By Owner and By Primary Contact)

Insurance

(PMG-237007)

• Ability to e-mail processed PDF reports from log: Users can now quickly send reports from processed PDF report packages to contacts or advisors by e-mail. On the Processed Reports Log list (Reports > Processed Reports Log), tag one or more report packages and select Menu > E-mail. SmartOffice then prompts the user to select contacts, primary advisors or both as the recipients. (PMG-247335)

• Enhanced phone number data in client report: The Client Detail PDF report now displays data from the Remarks field of phone number records. (PMG-350790)

• Tracking of PDF report permission changes: Customers who manage their own SmartOffice server configurations can now track changes made to the Permissions list on a PDF report’s setup page. As part of this enhancement:

- The layout of the Permissions list can now be customized to include the following columns: Created By, Modified By, Created On and Modified On.

- Administrators can now receive a detailed e-mail notification anytime report permission changes are made. This feature is configured through the new element in the server config.xml file and its child element, which accepts an e-mail address as its content.

(PMG-392314)

• Column cleanup for PDF report permission and setup lists: Adjustments were made to the PDF report setup area of the system to remove list columns that were not useful. These changes are visible to SmartOffice administrators who have System office access:

- PDF Report List (Setup > Report Setup): The REPORTSHARING table and its columns (Office Name and Office Full Name) were removed.

- Permissions list (report Detail content link): The Exclude Office ID and Shared Office ID columns from the REPORTSHARING table were added. In addition, the Office table was removed, and all columns from the ReadyMadeReports table except for Report ID and Permissions were removed.

(PMG-401191)

• Ability to queue multiple jobs for the same report package: Users can now submit more than one job to the Job Queue for the same PDF report package. If a job has already been queued for a particular report package, queuing another job for that package prompts an alert. The alert notifies the user of the existing job and asks for confirmation before submitting the additional job. Note that the set associated with the additional job must be different from the set associated with the existing job. (PMG-541610)

• Ability to share more package reports by e-mail: From the Processed Reports Log, users can now select the Menu > E-mail command for report packages created for household, position and account group sets. (PMG-570931)

• Report option changes: Several enhancements related to report options were made:

- When presented with report options while running a PDF report, users who select the Save Settings option now see a confirmation message. The message states that saving the settings will overwrite any previously saved custom settings for that report.

- In Report Setup, users who tried to create a report options record with an invalid entry in the Percentage field for Merge Slices Less Than were encountering an error. However, the field was not appearing highlighted to indicate where the problem was. The field now appears highlighted.

- When users created a report options record in Report Setup, the Maximum of 10 slices option for pie charts was not selected by default. It is now the default option.

- After creating a report options record in Report Setup, users were finding that the Run-Time Options check box for the report was not enabled unless they selected Menu > Save. Running the report at that point was producing an error. Now, users do not have to save the record for the Run-Time Options check box to be enabled.

- When a report was run without having at least one report options record in Report Setup, SmartOffice was displaying an error that did not adequately describe the problem. The error now explains the report options requirement.

(PMG-616295)

• Renamed command for making reports available for packages: In Report Setup, the Menu command Add Report to PDF List was renamed Make Available in Packaged Reports to reflect its purpose more accurately. In addition, selecting this command now displays a confirmation message informing the user that the selected reports will be made available for use in report packages and bunch reports. (PMG-618535)

• Report sharing improvements: For enterprise customers, two enhancements were made to the PDF report permission options available in a report's setup in the System office:

- In the Permissions section, when the option in the drop-down list is changed from Available in all offices to one of the other options, the user is now prompted immediately to search for and select one or more offices. Office selection is required; if no office is selected, the option remains as Available in all offices.

- Changes to report permissions now generate e-mail notifications.

- Deleting a report from the System office now generates an e-mail notification.

(PMG-632298)

• More quote information for bunch reports: While configuring bunch reports, users now have access to additional information about any VitalTerm quotes displayed in the Document List. Previously, users had to open each file to determine which one to attach to the bunch. Now, a new Details column displays the term duration, basic face amount and insured risk class information for each quote. (PMG-667772, PMG-667792)

SmartPad

• Ability to copy SmartPad e-mail entries: The ability to copy SmartPad entries from one contact to another has been expanded to include E-mail-type entries. Previously, only Note-type entries could be copied. The copy process includes any attachments that are part of the entry. (PMG-268462)

• Archive notification change: Previously, when users opened the SmartPad, the system checked whether archived SmartPad entries existed before displaying the message about how to access archived entries. Now, the system displays the message regardless of whether archived entries exist. This change improves system performance. Note that users who have the Do not show SmartPad archive dialog option selected in User Preferences - Basic Info will not see the message. (PMG-542605)

• SmartPad report export limits: To maintain overall performance, the system now allows users to export a maximum of 300 SmartPad records from a Dynamic Report results list. (PMG-638125)

• E-mail subject column in SmartPad: Users with list layout customization rights can now add the E-mail Subject column to the SmartPad list. The column displays the subject lines of posted e-mail messages. (PMG-666662)

Resolved Issues

General

• A compatibility issue affecting Internet Explorer 11 users was resolved.

• Users deleted from the My Favorite User List in User Preferences were reappearing in the list after the user signed out of SmartOffice and then signed back in. This issue was resolved. (PMG-142627)

• Modifying any field on the Custom content link of a contact, policy or other record was not updated the record’s Modified On and Modified By fields. This issue was resolved. (PMG-152551)

• When users privatized records from a filter, set or Dynamic Report list, the Privacy dialog box was not displaying the name of the record in the title bar. This issue was resolved. (PMG-154387)

• An issue that caused long waits when saving changes to the user account User Rights content link was resolved. (PMG-163442)

• For SmartOffice server administrators: The SmartOffice log (ecp.log) was recording service stop/start messages, even though these messages were already being logged in the SERVICELOG table. These messages no longer appear in ecp.log. (PMG-183306)

• The Delete command on the Resource List (Setup > Resource Management) was removed because a resource cannot be deleted; instead, its status can be changed to Disabled. (PMG-209979)

• For certain record lists, clicking the Next or Previous button from an open record was producing a message stating that the user had reached the beginning or end of the list, even when that was not the case. The buttons now work properly. (PMG-212843)

• The Contact ID# Masked column was incorrectly labeled SS# Masked in lists. This issue was resolved.

• When signing out of SmartOffice, users were seeing an additional dialog box asking them whether they wanted to close the browser window. This issue was resolved. (PMG-242055)

• SmartOffice’s date-picker control was closing immediately after users selected either the month or the day. This issue was resolved. (PMG-242868)

• When a new office was created, the first administrative user account created for that office was not being sent the standard SmartOffice welcome e-mail message. This issue was resolved. (PMG-248106)

• An option labeled “lblDontReceiveSREmails” on the Basic Info content link in User Preferences was removed. (PMG-250856)

• When an office was placed in read-only mode, users were encountering a “failed to load object” error when trying to search for activities. This issue was resolved. (PMG-255684)

• An issue affecting page layout customization for opportunity records was resolved. The issue occurred when users added custom choices to any custom drop-down list in an opportunity record and then customized the layout of the opportunity Detail content link to include those fields. When users then tried to customize the choices in those fields on the Detail content link, the custom choices did not match the previously added custom choices. (PMG-285558)

• An issue with searching for user accounts was resolved. When the user typed text into the User Name field of the search dialog box, SmartOffice was looking for that text only in the User Name field of user account records. The system now looks for the text in the Full Name field as well. (PMG-296439)

• When accessing SmartOffice through single sign-on (SSO), SmartOffice administrators were unable to create user accounts. This issue was resolved. (PMG-296528)

• The first user account created in a new office had multiple license packages enabled on the User Rights content link. This issue was resolved so that the first user has the Base SmartOffice package only. (PMG-298925)

• Issues with high memory usage that were making Internet Explorer unresponsive in some instances were resolved. (PMG-301265)

• Some users were being presented with a blank dialog box when they tried to print lists, send correspondence or open documents. This issue was resolved. (PMG-303059)

• When a user applied three or more column filters to a list and then tagged the list in the History tab, the filter selections were not being saved. This issue was resolved. (PMG-307657)

• The database table that stores KYC custom data was mislabeled UDENTITYDATA. The name was corrected to “KYC Custom Data.” (PMG-310396)

• When a Know Your Client (KYC) template included a field whose label contained a special character, such as an ampersand (&), users who tried to access the KYC tab of an investment account were encountering a “failed to load object” error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-310532)

• When an administrator configured Quick Action Corner buttons for the office through the Default User Preferences content link in Office Settings, newly created users in that office were seeing the SmartOffice default button configuration instead of the administrator’s custom configuration. This issue was resolved. (PMG-311919, PMG-317651)

• An issue was occurring when a user changed settings on the user account User Rights content link and then tried to navigate to a different content link without saving those changes. When SmartOffice asked the user whether the changes should be saved, clicking the No button was causing the browser to become unresponsive. This issue was resolved. (PMG-322951)

• An issue that was causing sign-in delays for some users was resolved. (PMG-329628)

• SmartOffice was not displaying the proper amount of storage used by offices. This issue was resolved. (PMG-338021)

• Two SmartOffice server issues were resolved:

- Users were finding that changes made to fields—for example, adding or updating custom choices in drop-down lists—were not being saved between SmartOffice sessions.

- For customers who manage their own SmartOffice deployments, the deployment-level configuration option that prevents SmartOffice users from signing in from more than one computer at the same time was not working.

(PMG-344844)

• When making changes to a user account’s Permissions content link, administrators were unable to save those changes. This issue was resolved. (PMG-349801)

• An issue that was causing sign-in delays of up to five minutes for some users was resolved. (PMG-357374)

• An issue with the validation of user input was resolved to prevent potential security issues. (PMG-357566)

• When an administrator tried to create a user account, SmartOffice was clearing the information in the New User Addition dialog box when an account by that name already existed. Now, the system displays a message informing the administrator that the account already exists. (PMG-389625)

• Users who selected the Print List command while viewing certain lists were finding that column subtotals and totals were missing in the generated PDF file. This issue was resolved. (PMG-420546)

• Custom page layout templates whose names contained special characters (e.g., colons, underscores, double-hyphens, ampersands) were producing “failed to load object” errors. To resolve this issue, SmartOffice no longer allows those characters in template names. (PMG-465338)

• An issue with the Notes (last 30 days) option in the Search drop-down list was resolved. After using the detailed search and changing the date range in the Search Notes dialog box, users were finding that the search results did not match the selected date range. (PMG-531882)

• In the User Preferences area in User Accounts, users with the Administrator: User Groups Proxy user right had access to the Menu > Save command in the Activity Options, Policies/Investments, Correspondence Options and Alert Center sub-content links. The command was removed for these users. (PMG-551595)

• In some instances, user groups created from the User Groups tab in Office Settings were not displaying in the list of groups. This issue was resolved. (PMG-551609)

• When merging contacts in an office with Protect Communication History enabled, choosing to delete the source contact was deleting the contact instead of archiving it. This issue was resolved. (PMG-551856)

• Users who accessed User Preferences from the side menu (Setup > User Preferences) were finding that the Password Reminder section on the Basic Info content link was not editable. This issue was resolved. (PMG-556998)

• An issue that prevented users from receiving SmartOffice alerts by text message was resolved. As part of this change, the Provider drop-down list in the Alert/Notification Settings Outside of SmartOffice section of User Preferences under Basic Info is now blank by default, and a provider must be actively selected. (PMG-558030)

• When the Default User Group setting on a user account was set to something other than All Users in Office, the user was unable to mass modify custom Yes/No fields. This issue was resolved. (PMG-560508)

• An issue that was preventing SmartAnalyzer from installing properly was resolved. (PMG-563097)

• A “failed to load object” error that was occurring when users tried to search for policies or pending cases was resolved. (PMG-567459)

• An alert with the subject line “Failed to run opt out service” was being sent erroneously to some offices. This issue was resolved. (PMG-580708)

Contact Management

• When performing an advanced contact search, users who tried to search by NRIC# were always receiving zero results. This issue was resolved.

• An issue that was preventing users from adding client family information was resolved.

• On the contact Letters/Documents content link, the Size (Bytes) column in the Document List was not accurately reflecting the size of uploaded images (e.g., contact photos) saved in a compressed format. This issue was resolved. (PMG-133186)

• Users were encountering a “failed to load object” error when customizing the layout of the Deleted Records List. The error occurred when users tried to use contact-name grouping and the Summary report layout. This issue was resolved. (PMG-135329)

• When the All Addresses column (Company table) was present on the Contact List, it was displaying information about deleted business records. Users who clicked the hyperlink for a deleted business in that column were also able to modify the business record’s data. These issues were resolved. (PMG-140035)

• Several business employee census issues were resolved:

- In the Employee Census Details dialog box, when users navigated to the Pre-existing Medical Conditions section using the Tab key, scroll bars and other visual anomalies were appearing in the dialog box.

- The Options > Sync Employee Census command on the Employee Census content link of a business was not working.

(PMG-140211)

• An issue affecting users who placed the Add to Set button in the Custom Button Bar of the Contact List was resolved. In some cases, when users pointed to the button to access the Add to Recent Set(s) menu, the menu was displaying incomplete set names. (PMG-142678)

• When a user created a contact by copying an existing contact, the Last Letter On and By dates from the original contact’s Add’l Personal content link were being copied to the new contact. This issue was resolved so that these fields are blank for the new contact. (PMG-154378)

• Two issues with the Business Hierarchy dialog box were resolved:

- The title did not clearly indicate its purpose. Now, the dialog box is titled “Business Hierarchy for \[Business Name\].”

- Users were unable to navigate to other areas of SmartOffice without closing the dialog box.

(PMG-158272)

• In SmartOffice lists, the information card that appears when users point to a contact or policy record was displaying dates in a format different from the format specified in the user’s preferences. This issue was resolved. (PMG-188688)

• Several issues with the selection of household heads in household records were resolved:

- When users changed the head of household by editing the existing head of household listed in the Household Members section, the change was not being reflected in the General Information section.

- Users were able to add two heads of household to the Household Members list in some instances.

- Users were able to search for and select a new household while viewing an entry in the Household Members list. This resulted in either the deletion of the current household record or the removal of the household head. Users can now edit the name of the household from that dialog box but cannot select a different household.

(PMG-201518)

• When added to the Contact List, the Source of Data column from the Contact table was not displaying any data. This issue was resolved. (PMG-251521)

• An issue that caused SmartPad notes to be posted to the wrong contact record was resolved. (PMG-252571)

• Two issues involving duplicate contact creation were resolved:

• When a user tried to create a contact with the same first and last names as an existing contact assigned to the user, SmartOffice was creating a duplicate contact without warning the user.

• When a user tried to create a contact with the same last name as an existing contact assigned to the user, SmartOffice was incorrectly warning  that a duplicate contact was about to be created. The system was not checking whether the first name was also the same before displaying the warning.

(PMG-253278)

• An issue that caused the View More and Record Count hyperlinks at the bottom of record lists to run together was resolved. (PMG-265364)

• Several issues that prevented cross-office contact merge from working correctly were resolved. Note that this feature is currently disabled on SmartOffice Online pending additional testing. (PMG-272421)

• When merging contacts, SmartOffice was assuming contacts were assigned to all users, even when the source contact contained specific user assignments. This issue was resolved, and the Conflicts section of the Merge Records dialog box now reports any user assignment conflicts. (PMG-276476)

• An issue that prevented the Customer Referral Visualizer from opening was resolved. (PMG-276585)

• Choices added to drop-down lists on the contact Custom content link were appearing on the event Custom content link and vice versa. This issue was resolved. (PMG-279513)

• On the business Employee Census content link, the Spouse column was blank for employee census members who had spouses. The column now displays correctly. (PMG-279341)

• On the business Key Relations content link, the Role column was renamed Contact Role to make it consistent with the Contact Role field in the Business Key Relationship Details dialog box, where users edit key relation information. (PMG-282358)

• In newly created page layout templates for pending cases, SmartOffice was filling the Holding Type field with a value, Mutual Funds, that did not apply to pending cases. This issue was resolved. (PMG-282755)

• Users were unable to use list grouping on the business Employee Census and Key Relations content links then using custom sort. (PMG-291726)

• When a user’s permissions were configured to prevent the user from deleting advisor records, users were still able to delete the advisor’s contact record. This issue was resolved. (PMG-298284)

• On the household Detail content link, the second custom field in the Miscellaneous Information section changed from accepting integer values to accepting numeric values. The field now accepts integer values again. (PMG-303683)

• Users were unable to print multiple contact records from a list using the Print Record Details option. This issue was resolved. (PMG-315106)

• In enterprise configurations, users who had proxy rights to view the data of users in other offices were unable to see those users’ assigned contacts when performing contact searches. This issue was resolved. (PMG-319569)

• An issue that caused excessive delays when users tried to post documents or e-mail messages to SmartOffice was resolved. (PMG-329148)

• Users who tried to merge contacts from the Duplicate Records area of the system were encountering a “processing cancelled” error. In addition, the next batch of duplicate contacts were not being displayed automatically, forcing users to select Utilities > Duplicate Records again before they could proceed. These issues were resolved. (PMG-340791)

• After creating more than 800 tasks using the Mass Task Creation command, users were finding that only 800 tasks were listed in the Activity Log dialog box that opens after the tasks are created. The dialog box now displays all tasks created. (PMG-393521)

• On the Set Membership content link of a set, the Created On column was displaying a future date for contacts created or updated through the Data Import Wizard. This issue was resolved.   (PMG-460413)

• An “insert/update” error that users were encountering when trying to create advisor records was resolved. (PMG-531089)

• Users were encountering an error stating, “The file could not be located,” when they tried to open files in the contact Document List. This issue was resolved. (PMG-544750)

• Exporting a contact from one office to another was producing an error when the contact was linked to a primary advisor. To resolve this issue, SmartOffice now removes the primary advisor when exporting the contact. (PMG-545239)

• Some users who tried to open contacts from a list were seeing blank contact records. This issue was resolved. (PMG-547332)

• On the set Detail content link, the value in the \# of Members field was different from the number of members displayed on the Set Members content link in some instances. This issue was resolved. (PMG-551288)

• An error that users were encountering when attempting to merge contacts was resolved. (PMG-556296)

• The Export List command was missing from the Employee Census content link of business records. The command was restored. (PMG-556317)

• An issue with linking an advisor record to a new contact was resolved. When the advisor had a SmartView for Advisors user account, SmartOffice was not adding the advisor to the User Assignment list on the contact Add’l Personal content link. (PMG-559743)

• The Address column of the contact Preferred Address table was displaying the contact’s entire address instead of just the street. This issue, which affected the Contact List as well as Contact-category Dynamic Reports, was resolved. (PMG-563016, PMG-569916)

• When users pointed to a contact in the Contact List, the information card that appeared was displaying an incorrect birth date. This issue was resolved. (PMG-557398)

• An issue with the contact Key Relations content link was resolved. After filtering the list of key relations by selecting an option from the Type drop-down list, users who printed the list using the Print All option were finding that all key relations were being printed regardless of type. (PMG-575032)

Correspondence

• While trying to create an envelope for a contact with multiple mailing addresses, users were finding that the envelope always displayed the contact’s preferred address, even when the user selected a different address in the Correspondence Wizard. The wizard now prints the correct address on the envelope. (PMG-143670)

• An issue that occurred when users initiated e-mail correspondence from the Letter Log section of an advisor record was resolved. During the correspondence workflow, the system was allowing users to delete the advisor from the confirmed recipient list, add a business record containing no e-mail address to the list, and then send the e-mail. The e-mail was then being posted to the business’s Letter Log displaying the advisor’s e-mail address. This issues were resolved. (PMG-151419)

• An issue that occurred when a user viewed the data of another user through the See Data For feature was resolved. When the signed-in user sent e-mail correspondence to a contact, the message displayed the name of the signed-in user and the e-mail address of the user whose data the signed-in user was viewing at the time. This issue was resolved so that the signed-in user’s name and e-mail address display in the sent message. (PMG-250416)

• While resending a print letter from a contact’s Letter Log, users navigating the Correspondence Wizard were encountering a “Prepare contacts for mass printing failed” error in some instances. This issue was resolved. (PMG-294456)

• A “Your action cannot be completed” error that users were encountering when trying to send e-mail to shared contacts was resolved. The error occurred when a user clicked a shared contact’s e-mail address or selected the Launch E-mail command from the Correspondence button menu. (PMG-299074)

• General performance issues affecting correspondence were resolved. (PMG-300508)

• A “failed to load object” error that occurred when users tried to send mass e-mail correspondence was resolved. The error occurred when users specified a filter that selected recipients based on the contents of the advisor Region Code field. (PMG-304428)

• When expanded in letters, the Requirement Remarks merge code was displaying special codes if the remarks contained formatting. This issue was resolved.  (PMG-317381, PMG-317463)

• Errors that occurred when the system processed large volumes of e-mail correspondence were resolved. (PMG-337063)

• When sending correspondence from a contact record, users were finding that the AdvisorAddress merge code was displaying the contact’s address instead of the primary advisor’s address. This issue was resolved. (PMG-341209)

• After creating a new calendar activity, users who sent a confirmation e-mail message were finding that the e-mail subject line was displaying the name of the correspondence template instead of the default subject line for that template. This issue was resolved. (PMG-352137)

• While viewing the results of a calendar activity Dynamic Report, users who changed the sorting and then tried to create correspondence were finding that some merge codes were not working. This issue was resolved. (PMG-543912)

• An issue that prevented users from starting the mass correspondence workflow from a Dynamic Report results list was resolved. (PMG-551237, DOMR-11106)

• When starting correspondence from a list of contacts, users who tried to send a template-based letter by text were encountering a “failed to load object” error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-551597, DOMR-133466)

• When a user sent correspondence to a set, previously deleted members were still appearing in the recipients list in the Correspondence Wizard, and letters were being printed for those recipients. This issue was resolved. (PMG-551605)

• Issues with the wording of Menu command labels on the SMS Template list were resolved. Note that this feature is not available on SmartOffice Online. (PMG-553447)

Data Import/Export

• Importing contacts into SmartOffice was creating duplicates of existing SmartOffice contacts instead of updating them. This issue was resolved.

• Two issues with data import were resolved:

- When a System-office import setup was copied to a local office and then modified, the import setup’s Created By field was displaying the name of the System office user who created the original instead of the local office user who copied and modified it.

- The import wizard was not placing any restrictions on characters that could be used as separators in import files.

(PMG-158996)

• An issue that was resulting in missing records when data was exported from SmartOffice lists was resolved. (PMG-259736)

• In offices in which custom fields were created for candidate records, the Data Import Wizard was not displaying those fields for mapping during the candidate import process. These fields are now available for mapping. (PMG-266267)

• An issue that occurred when previously imported contacts were re-imported with additional data was resolved. If a subsequent import file contained new data for a contact—and if the data was mapped to a field in the Miscellaneous Information section of the contact Add’l Personal content link—the new data was not being imported into the existing contact record. (PMG-281384)

• After importing contacts that were exported from another office, users were receiving an alert stating that the export had failed. This issue was resolved. (PMG-288005)

• The command Options > List Options > Export List was missing from the Employee Census content link of business records. The command was restored. (PMG-291721)

• When a contact imported from a .csv file matched an existing contact, the user assignment of the existing contact was being improperly changed to include all users in the office. This issue was resolved. (PMG-298723)

• The Data Import Wizard was improperly allowing users to map the Modified On field as part of the import setup. This issue was resolved so that the field is no longer available for mapping during import. Also, SmartOffice now automatically updates the Modified On and Modified By fields of contact records in SmartOffice after they have been updated through a data import. In addition, when creating a presale activity from the advisor Presale Activity/Proposals tab, users were finding that the new record was showing a numeral as the plan type. (PMG-319484)

• When importing business leads, users were seeing a Last Name field in the Leads table for mapping in the Data Import Wizard. Users now see a Business Name field instead. (PMG-330275)

• Offices configured to send e-mail from a yahoo.com e-mail address were finding that messages were not being delivered. This issue was caused by a Yahoo! network restriction. To resolve this issue, SmartOffice no longer accepts yahoo.com e-mail addresses in the SMTP Settings section of Office Settings. Users who try to enter a yahoo.com address are prompted to use a different address. (PMG-332596)

• E-mail correspondence sent from SmartOffice was becoming stuck in the e-mail queue with the error “Illegal whitespace in address.” This issue was resolved. (PMG-340413)

• Sets created in SmartOffice following import of a contact CSV file did not contain a Created On date. This issue was resolved. (PMG-342644)

• After importing business records into SmartOffice, users were finding that primary contact information was appearing in business lists but not on the business Detail content link. This issue was resolved. (PMG-389093)

• During contact import, any phone number, address and e-mail address information in the import file was not being automatically marked as preferred/primary in SmartOffice. To resolve this issue, SmartOffice now automatically selects the Mark Imported E-mail, Address and Phone numbers as preferred option in the Data Import Wizard by default. (PMG-532087)

• A data import issue that occurred when the user opted to create business records from imported company data was resolved. When a user configured the import to assign newly imported records to another user, the contacts were being assigned properly, but the business records were not. (PMG-548891)

Dynamic Reports

• An issue that was causing product/plan names to appear blank in Dynamic Reports was resolved.

• When exporting Dynamic Report results from SmartOffice, users were finding that the exported file contained duplicate lines with the same NBHistory ID value. This issue was resolved.

• The page navigation features in Dynamic Report results lists was displaying more pages than expected based on the report criteria. This issue was resolved.

• Users were experiencing delays exporting analytic report results to Excel templates. This issue was resolved.

• A “failed to load object” error that occurred when users tried to run report automation for Dynamic Reports was resolved. (PMG-234442)

• An issue that was causing duplicate automated Dynamic Report e-mail messages to be sent to recipients was resolved. (PMG-235946)

• After adding e-mailing rules to the Automatic Report E-mailing section of Dynamic Report Setup, users were finding that they could not edit the Description field in the Details/Add Filter section. This issue was resolved. (PMG-251132)

• In the Detail/Add Filter section of the Dynamic Report setup dialog box, the Search Filters command was not working properly after the report was saved. The command now works properly. (PMG-252754)

• The Record Count hyperlink at the bottom of the Dynamic Report results list was not working properly. This issue was resolved. (PMG-253618)

• An issue that caused recipients of automated Dynamic Reports to receive duplicate e-mail messages was resolved. (PMG-256411)

• The automatic Dynamic Report e-mailing feature was not working properly when the report was sent in comma-separated values (CSV) format and contained certain special characters. This issue was resolved. (PMG-259136)

• Users who tried to run a Dynamic Report from the SmartPad - Contact/Business/Household category were encountering a “failed to load object” error. The error occurred when the report contained a filter in which Note Status was equal to Archived. This issue was resolved. (PMG-262237)

• An issue affecting Dynamic Reports using the Summary report layout was resolved. When the user selected individual records in the report results and tried to print them, the PDF file that SmartOffice generated was blank. (PMG-266060)

• An issue with Household-category Dynamic Report filters was resolved. When the user created a filter to look for records in which the Numeric field was greater than a particular number, records matching that criteria were not appearing in report results. This issue was resolved. (PMG-267183)

• An issue affecting Dynamic Reports that use the Specify filter at run-time option was resolved. When one of these reports was run from the Contact & Business List using the Menu > Reports > Run ‘Contact/Business’ Dynamic Reports command, the dialog box for selecting report options was not opening. (PMG-287850)

• When Dynamic Reports were run directly from Excel, no log entries were being added to SmartOffice’s ExportLog table. Logging is now enabled in this scenario. (PMG-292622)

• When a user customized the layout of the contact Detail content link and added an existing activity Dynamic Report, the report was displaying only those activities that were assigned to the user. This issue was resolved. (PMG-293472)

• An issue affecting Dynamic Reports whose results spanned multiple pages was resolved. When users clicked the View More link at the bottom of the results list, the results on the last page were incorrect. (PMG-293625)

• An issue that caused automatic e-mailing of Dynamic Reports to stop working for some users was resolved. (PMG-295545)

• In printed Dynamic Reports with a large number of columns, column totals containing five or more numerals were overlapping with totals in adjacent columns. This issue was resolved. (PMG-298008)

• Dynamic Reports that normally pulled in other users’ activities were not displaying those activities when viewed in a home page tab. This issue was resolved. (PMG-302440)

• Recipients of Dynamic Report PDF files sent using the Automatic Report E-mailing feature were encountering an error stating that the file was damaged when they tried to open the PDFs. The files now open properly. (PMG-323973)

• On the shared Welcome tab on the SmartOffice home page, changing the filter criteria on the Birthdays Coming Up report was having no effect on the report results. This issue was resolved. (PMG-337122)

• When the results of a Dynamic Report configured for automatic e-mailing exceeded 20,000 records, only the first 20,000 records were being included in the .csv file sent to recipients. This issue was resolved. (PMG-337124)

• After modifying a Calendar-category Dynamic Report by selecting the Don’t prompt User Calendar Selection at run-time option, users were finding that the change was not being retained in some cases when the report was run again. This issue was resolved. (PMG-338373)

• After adding a Dynamic Report to a home page tab, users who changed the report filter and ran the report again were finding that the report results were not changing. This issue was resolved. (PMG-339395)

• An issue that prevented Dynamic Report definitions from importing properly in certain situations was resolved. (PMG-340928)

• A “failed to load object” error that users encountered when they tried to open leads Dynamic Reports sent to them automatically by e-mail was resolved. (PMG-345438)

• An issue that prevented automatic e-mailing of Dynamic Reports from working was resolved. (PMG-348293)

• In Dynamic Reports added to shared home page tabs, users who did not have access to certain contacts were still able to view calendar activities linked to those contacts. This issue was resolved. (PMG-349545)

• Recipients of automatically generated pending case Dynamic Reports were unable to open the reports. This issue was resolved. (PMG-423585)

• Users who selected the Print List command while viewing the results of certain Dynamic Reports were finding that column subtotals and totals were missing in the generated PDF file. This issue was resolved. (PMG-452328, PMG-452435)

• SmartPad-family Dynamic Reports that were configured with goal columns were not displaying gauges to track goal progress. This issue was resolved. (PMG-532858)

• A performance issue affecting the automatic e-mailing feature of Dynamic Reports was resolved. (PMG-534295, PMG-548008)

• In grouped Dynamic Reports that used the Summary layout, different groupings were being improperly displayed together in the same pie chart. This issue was resolved. (PMG-535799)

• An issue that occurred when a user ran a Dynamic Report in SmartOffice and then deleted several of the resulting records was resolved. When the user later ran the same report directly from Excel, the number of results displayed in Excel was not reflecting the deletions made in SmartOffice. (PMG-541111)

• After running certain Dynamic Reports, users were finding that the Organize List By drop-down list under Report Options was not working. This issue was resolved. (PMG-551213)

• After running a Dynamic Report from the Calendar Agenda using the command Options > Reports > Run ‘Activity’ Dynamic Reports, users who clicked the Record Count link on the results list were seeing an incorrect count. This issue was resolved. (PMG-559380)

• When the labels of the custom fields on the user account Detail content link were customized, the custom labels were not appearing in Dynamic Reports that included those columns. This issue was resolved. (PMG-559383)

• A “failed to load object” error that users encountered when running Calendar-family Dynamic Reports was resolved. (PMG-566527)

Filters

• When a filter was set up to look for contact sub-types that included a plus (+) sign (e.g., A+), users were finding that the filter worked in searches but not in reports. This issue was resolved. (PMG-343250)

• When users tried to create a filter for the Primary Advisor column of the Contact table, the filter condition drop-down list was displaying integer-related conditions (e.g., is less than, is greater than) instead of text-related conditions (e.g., contains, does not contain). This issue was resolved. (PMG-537485)

Home Page

• Shared home page tabs were not appearing for some users. This issue was resolved. (PMG-322419)

• An issue that was intermittently causing home page tabs to appear blank was resolved. (PMG-326291)

• Issues with missing icons and errors adding dashboards on the home page were resolved. (PMG-544088)

PDF Reports

• Users on servers that integrate with Crystal Reports were encountering an error when they tried to run reports from a list of contacts. The error was resolved. (PMG-166337)

• Several issues with PDF report disclaimers were resolved:

- Users who selected the Bottom of Each Page option when configuring optional disclaimers were finding that cover page disclaimers were also appearing at the bottom of the page.

- Users who selected the Bottom of Each Page option when configuring optional disclaimers were finding that, after selecting a disclaimer and being prompted to refresh the page, clicking Yes was running the report immediately.

- Users who selected the Bottom of Each Page option when configuring optional disclaimers were finding that, after confirming deletion of a disclaimer and being prompted to save the changes, clicking Yes was running the report immediately.

- In Holding Statement PDF reports, footer disclaimers that were longer than one line were being truncated in the middle of the second line.

- When configuring report options, users were able to change the disclaimer type of a local mandatory disclaimer.

(PMG-187646)

• When users selected PDF report options related to pie chart slices and the location of optional disclaimers, the system was not properly saving those choices. This issue was resolved. (PMG-200335)

• The system was allowing users to delete PDF report disclaimers designated as mandatory without warning them that a mandatory disclaimer was being deleted. Now, users see a confirmation message stating: “Any mandatory disclaimers linked to this disclaimer will also be deleted. Continue?” (PMG-219433)

• Two issues with user disclaimers in PDF reports were resolved:

- When configuring user disclaimers through a report’s options, users were able to select existing disclaimers, but the command to create a disclaimer was missing.

- In the User Disclaimers section of a report’s options, the ToolTip that appeared when users pointed to the disclaimer selection button incorrectly read, “Select Mandatory Disclaimers.”

In addition, user disclaimers are now referred to as optional disclaimers throughout the system to more accurately describe their function in PDF reports. (PMG-239806)

• When a PDF report’s Report Setup page contained multiple report option entries—and when the Do not allow report options to be modified at runtime option was selected—users running reports were seeing only the first report option in the Select a Report to Run dialog box. This issue was resolved. In addition, errors that were occurring when users ran certain investment reports were resolved. (PMG-251625)

• Several issues with PDF report options were resolved:

- When a report’s default options in Report Setup were configured to display optional disclaimers at the bottom of the page, users who ran the report were not seeing the Normal Font Size and Small Font Size options when prompted to select report options.

- The Normal Font Size and Small Font Size options were not being saved when users selected the Save Settings option while running a report.

- Manually added report options in Report Setup were missing pie chart options.

(PMG-253261)

• When users ran a Policy-category PDF report, the options presented did not list the Critical Illness option under Select Policy Types, even when the user’s preferences specified that Critical Illness policies should be displayed in SmartOffice. This issue was resolved. (PMG-267487)

• When a user created a PDF report without selecting any of the following options in the report’s setup, SmartOffice was improperly assigning null values to those options in the database.

- Restrict source of data for investment records to

- Restrict source of data for policy records to

- Do not allow report options to be modified at run time

- Cover page required

- Pie chart setting for run-time options

This issue, which was producing errors when the report’s definition was exported, was resolved. (PMG-270689)

• The Client Detail PDF report was displaying the users who created tasks as task assignees rather than displaying the users who were actually assigned to the tasks. The report now displays assignees correctly. (PMG-282171)

• An issue that was causing “failed to load object” errors for users trying to generate PDF reports was resolved. (PMG-319325)

• A PDF report setup issue affecting customers who have System office access was resolved. On the report Detail content link, when users customized the layout of the Permissions list to display columns from the REPORTSHARING table only, the columns were not displaying values. (PMG-343092)

• Two PDF report setup issues were resolved:

- Users were unable to export the report definition for a newly created PDF report when the Restrict Source of Data option was not selected for the report.

- When certain options on the report setup Detail content link were selected and the user then saved the changes twice, the selected options were being cleared.

(PMG-344284)

• A “failed to load object” error that was appearing when users selected PDF List from the View drop-down list on the Report Packages list was resolved. The issue occurred when the Report File Name column was not present on the PDF Report List. (PMG-557550)

• When the details or members of a set assigned to a PDF report package were changed, the changes were being reflected in jobs that were already submitted, processing or complete. This issue was resolved. (PMG-558298)

• An issue that prevented some users from running PDF reports was resolved. (PMG-574296)

• An issue that was causing slowdowns when users ran PDF reports was resolved. (PMG-579699)

SmartPad

• Users were able to save a SmartPad note containing no text by adding a character and then deleting it before saving the note. This issue was resolved. (PMG-134060)

• Additional script errors that user were encountering when closing the SmartPad were resolved. (PMG-157813)

• Some users were seeing no SmartPad notes after opening the SmartPad, and the View More command was unavailable. These issues were resolved. (PMG-160277)

• When a contact’s SmartPad contained entries specific to a SmartOffice module (e.g., SmartPolicies, SmartInvestments, etc.), users who did not have access to that module were sometimes being prevented from viewing other SmartPad notes that they would normally able to view. This issue was resolved. (PMG-205101)  

• When a SmartPad entry was created for an uploaded file, any subsequent edits to that entry were being lost if the document was later edited and saved back to SmartOffice. This issue was resolved. (PMG-266004)

• When the user SmartPad was opened from the side menu (Utilities > User SmartPad), the Menu command for copying SmartPad notes was missing. The command was restored. (PMG-268471)

• An “insert operation cancelled” error that users encountered with the SmartPad was resolved. (PMG-288739)

• The SmartPad Auto-Archiving options on the office SmartPad/New Contact/E-mail Posting content link were removed for SmartOffice Online offices because auto-archiving was not available for those customers. SmartOffice Online users can still archive SmartPad entries manually using the Menu > Archive Note(s) command in the SmartPad. (PMG-337604)

• Using the Search Notes command in the SmartPad was resulting in an error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-530424)

• When users searched for SmartPad entries using the Notes (last 30 days) option in the Search drop-down list, archived entries were not appearing in the search results. (PMG-549226)

• When users opened an e-mail message posted to the SmartPad, the message was opening in SmartOffice as well as Outlook. This issue was resolved. (PMG-549540)

• An issue that was causing the SmartPad’s Subject column to be blank for entries that had a subject was resolved. (PMG-564749)

SmartCalendar

Featured Enhancements

Activity Outcome Alerts

When a completed calendar activity or task has the Track Activity Outcome option selected but contains no activity outcome information, users now receive an alert. The alert reminds the user to record outcome information and includes a link that the user can click to immediately enter the activity outcome workflow.

Users can turn these alerts on or off in SmartOffice by going to the Alert Center content link in User Preferences and selecting or clearing the Activity Outcome option under SmartOffice Alerts.

Enterprise customers can configure this feature at the server level. In the server config.xml file, the following tags allow administrators to specify how often (in minutes) the service generates outcome alerts for users () and how many days in the past the service looks to find completed activities that have no outcome information ().

     false

     com.ezdata.cdsportal.data.activity.activityalert.ActivityOutcomeService

     true

     10

     1

(PMG-535126, PMG-575815)

Other Enhancements

• Calendar printing restrictions based on visibility settings: When a user tries to print the calendars of other users, SmartOffice now restricts printing based on the View other users’ calendars setting on the Detail content link of the user’s account. When the setting is No, users cannot print other users’ calendars. (PMG-311495)

• Task AutoMove enabled by default: To bring task behavior more in line with users’ expectations, Task AutoMove is now enabled for all task types by default in User Preferences > Activity Options. This ensures that unfinished past tasks are automatically moved to the current day’s task list. (PMG-329849)

Resolved Issues

• Several issues related to calendar activities and correspondence were resolved:

- When trying to use the Change Associated Contact command from an activity’s Information Card, users were encountering a script error.

- When creating print correspondence, envelopes or labels, users were finding that the available mailing addresses listed in Step 4 of the Correspondence Wizard were truncated.

- Users who changed the contact associated with an activity to a shared contact were encountering errors about insufficient security rights. The error appeared when the user later tried to change the contact again or create additional activities.

(PMG-233519)

• When trying to synchronize Outlook appointments that recurred monthly with a pattern such as “The second Monday of every 1 month,” the appointments were not being added to SmartOffice. In addition, the sync report was listing an error stating, “Activity not synchronized from Outlook – Error.” This issue was resolved. (PMG-240877)

• When an office was placed in read-only mode and more than 500 tasks were auto-moved, users were no longer able to sign in to that office. This issue was resolved. (PMG-243119)

• An issue that caused activity note searches to incorrectly return no results was resolved. (PMG-252101)

• When users marked multiple activities as Done simultaneously, multiple duplicate entries to that effect were being created in the associated contact’s SmartPad. This issue was resolved. (PMG-262843)

• For some users who pointed to a calendar activity to display its information card, the Detail hyperlink that normally displays details about the activity was either missing or not clickable. This issue was resolved. (PMG-274930)

• An issue that occurred when an advisor created an activity that included multiple participants from other offices was resolved. The issue occurred when the advisor assigned a participant from another office as the primary participant. When the new primary participant signed in to SmartOffice and tried to assign any another participant as the primary participant, the activity was being saved with no primary participant selected. (PMG-284086)

• An issue that was preventing users from reassigning calendar activities and tasks to another user in another office was resolved. (PMG-289721)

• When a user who did not create an activity tried to delete a participant from the activity, the system was improperly deleting all participants. This issue was resolved. (PMG-292741)

• In the Tasks list in the Calendar Day view, the Primary Participant column was incorrectly displaying the value “None” for any task created in another office and linked to a shared contact in that office. This issue was resolved. (PMG-294495)

• When creating a calendar activity, users who typed a partial name in the Contact Name field were finding that the dynamically generated list of available contacts displayed only those contacts created by the admin user. This issue was resolved. (PMG-299776)

• When a calendar activity was marked Done, the SmartPad entry that was created did not contain the appropriate keyword. This issue was resolved. (PMG-316071)

• An issue affecting activities that were rescheduled during the activity outcome workflow was resolved. When these activities were also assigned to a different user as part of the workflow, they were still appearing on the original user’s calendar and not on the new user’s calendar. (PMG-390547)

• The Marketing Manager column in the calendar Agenda View was displaying no information for activities linked to advisors. This issue was resolved. (PMG-509461)

• When a meeting was created in Outlook and synchronized to SmartOffice, the meeting details were not being inserted into the confirmation letter sent to the contact. This issue was resolved. (PMG-534763)

• An “insert/update failed” error that users encountered when they tried to mark activities Done on the contact Activity Log tab was resolved. The error occurred when users selected the Contact Made and Schedule New Appointment Activity options in the activity outcome workflow. (PMG-544944)

• An issue affecting users who v iew the pop-up calendar was resolved. When the calendar first opened to the Month View, the current day and week were not highlighted. This issue was resolved. (PMG-545761)

• For newly created user accounts, the Task AutoMove setting in User Preferences is now set to 30 Days by default. This change addresses the issue of incomplete tasks disappearing too quickly from users’ task lists. (PMG-551313)

• During the activity outcome workflow in SmartOffice, users who tried to customize the choices for certain drop-down lists were encountering an “illegal argument” error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-559766)

• The Track Activity Outcome option was being enabled automatically for calendar activities, even when users had the Disable default Activity Tracking for new activities option enabled in User Preferences. This issue was resolved. (PMG-566614, PMG-567808, PMG-567889)

• An issue that was causing recurring activities to be scheduled at the wrong time and on the wrong date was resolved. (PMG-567682, PMG-562915)

• Some users were seeing other users’ calendar data in their own calendars. This issue was resolved. (PMG-578226)

SmartLeads

Resolved Issues

• When trying to assign leads from the All - Leads List to multiple advisors, users were encountering a “failed to load object” error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-258692)

• Leads forwarded from one office to another were not retaining data entered in custom fields. This data now transfers properly. (PMG-265992)

• The Leads Web Options section on the Detail content link in Office Settings was missing. The section was restored. (PMG-574903)

SmartRecruiting

Enhancements

• Page layout customization for candidate records: Page layout customization is now available for the candidate Detail content link, allowing users of the SmartRecruiting module to define what content they want candidate records to display and how that information is organized. (PMG-292891)

• Grouping by week in recruiting reports: Dynamic Reports in the Recruiting family can now be grouped by week. To do this, create a custom sort that includes a date column. Select the date column and choose the Use as List Grouping option. Then select the new Week option from the Date Grouping drop-down list. (PMG-292908)

• Comprehensive recruiting reports: In the Recruiting family of Dynamic Reports, a Recruiting Comprehensive report category was added. The new category enables SmartRecruiting users to create wide-ranging reports that pull in data from all database tables related to stages, actions and interviews. (PMG-292887)

• Candidate search improvements: On detailed candidate searches, when users select the Agent Referrals, Nominator, Personal Observation or Center of Influence option from the How Secured field in the search dialog box, SmartOffice now includes contact, business, advisor, agency and candidate records in the results.

• Target Market field changes: On the candidate Personal content link, the Target Market drop-down list is now blank, and users with the appropriate rights can now add custom choices to the list. This change enables offices to better tailor the available choices to their needs. (PMG-311432)

• Ability to designate a default position: In the first step of the SmartRecruiting Position Setup Wizard, a Default Position check box was added. Recruiting administrators can use this check box to designate the position that is automatically selected for new candidate records. As part of this enhancement, users with list layout customization rights can also add the new Default Position column to the Positions list in SmartRecruiting Setup. (PMG-338527)

Resolved Issues

• The choices available from the Recruiting Source drop-down list on the candidate Detail content link were irrelevant to the recruiting process and were removed. (PMG-245244)

• On the candidate Detail content link, the Stage/Date field was displaying the date on which the previous stage’s details were modified. This issue was resolved. The field now properly reflects the current stage’s start date. (PMG-292884)

• When a stage was added after the currently designated Hired/Contracted stage of a position, SmartOffice was automatically designating the new stage as the Hired/Contracted stage. This issue was resolved. (PMG-336960)

• Users who customized the page layout of the candidate Personal content link were finding that the First Name field was not displaying a value. This issue was resolved. (PMG-342168)

• On the candidate Add’l Personal content link, when users edited and saved the Created On date field under Important Dates, the system was subtracting a day from the date. This issue was resolved. (PMG-530128)

• An issue affecting users who customized the layout of the candidate Personal content was resolved. The issue occurred when the layout included the Important Dates portlet and the user changed the Created On date in that portlet. When the user then navigated to the candidate’s Interview/Actions content link and viewed the first stage of the recruiting process, the stage’s Start Date field was not reflecting the change. (PMG-535413)

• On the candidate Precontract content link, several commands in the Options menus were incorrectly labeled. The commands now have proper labels. (PMG-538428)

• In Recruit Comprehensive-category Dynamic Reports, the Recruiter column was not available for inclusion in a custom sort. This issue was resolved. (PMG-541458)

SmartOpportunities

Enhancements

• Opportunity and presale visibility options: A Visible to Advisors option was added to the opportunity Detail content link. In addition, visibility options for opportunities and presale activities were added to Policy/Case Setup under Advisor Communication > Advisor Privacy. These changes were made for a future SmartOffice enhancement. (PMG-554770)

• Ability to assign staff users as opportunity owners: Users whose user type is Staff can now be assigned as opportunity owners. Previously, only Producer/Manager-type users could be opportunity owners. (PMG-649574)

Resolved Issues

• After customizing the layout of the opportunity Detail content link to include the Custom portlet, users were finding that the Options > Edit Custom Fields command in the portlet was not working. This issue was resolved. (PMG-182869)

• When an opportunity process was exported from one office and imported into another, the import process was omitting some actions within certain stages. This issue was resolved. (PMG-233242)

• When the Opportunity List was customized to include any column from the Modified By table, such as the Modified By (Full Name) column, opportunity records that were never modified were being excluded from the list. This issue was resolved. (PMG-344817)

• Users who did not have the Opportunity Setup Administrator license were able to modify opportunity processes by clicking the Process hyperlink on the Opportunity List. This issue was resolved. (PMG-552700)

SmartRecruiting

Resolved Issues

• On the Interview/Actions content link of a candidate record, using the Options > Send E-mail command in the Actions - In-Depth Interview section was creating an incorrect SmartPad entry. The entry was reporting that the e-mail message had been sent to the signed-in user’s e-mail address instead of the candidate’s e-mail address. This issue was resolved. (PMG-252894)

• Untimed activities created from the candidate Interview/Actions content link did not have the Track Activity Outcome option selected by default. This issue was resolved. (PMG-538427)

SmartEvents

Resolved Issues

• The Allocatable column is no longer available on the Expenses content link of event records. The column was not applicable for SmartOffice Online users. (PMG-576081)

Advisors/Agencies

Featured Enhancements

Improved Presale Activity-Pending Case Integration

Several changes were made to integrate the presale activity and pending case areas of the system more closely.

• Automatic case creation: SmartOffice can now create pending cases automatically when presale activities meet specific conditions. To define these conditions, open Policy/Case Setup and navigate to Follow-Up > Presale Activity/Proposals. A new section called Create Pending Cases at the bottom lets administrators define the presale action and status that will trigger the creation of a pending case, as well as the status of the new case and the person who will be assigned as the case manager. To define a rule for case creation, select Options > New ‘Presale to PCM Setup’ record in the Create Pending Cases section, and then select the appropriate options in the dialog box that opens.

• Faster navigation between linked presale activities and cases: While viewing a presale activity record that has been converted to a pending case, users can now click the new Pending Case content link to quickly access the associated case.

• Automatic status changes: Certain status changes in pending cases now result in automatic status changes in their associated presale activities, and vice versa:

• When a pending case’s status changes to In Underwriting, the associated presale activity’s status changes to Application Received.

• When a pending case’s status changes to Inactive, the associated presale activity’s status changes to Closed.

• When a presale activity’s status changes to Not Taken, the associated pending case’s status changes to Not Taken.

• When a presale activity’s status changes to Closed, the associated pending case’s status changes to Closed.

• Case manager policy contacts in pending case workflows: Administrators can now configure SmartOffice to automatically assign case manager policy contacts to new pending cases. To do so, open Policy/Case Setup and navigate to PCM Workflows > Initial PCM Workflow. Then select Case Manager in Policy Key Relations from the drop-down list labeled The Case Manager should default to. The case manager policy contact must be linked to a SmartOffice user account, and if there are multiple case manager policy contacts, SmartOffice selects the first one added to the advisor record.

(PMG-139963, PMG-208797)

SmartView Case Status Enhancements

A number of improvements were made to the SmartView Case Status site that advisors access to obtain case updates:

• Improved navigation and appearance: The links for accessing policy, case and other data are now located in the left navigation menu for more intuitive access. In addition, the brown color scheme was replaced by a blue color scheme.

• Presale activity access: Advisors can now view their presale activities using the Presale List link in the navigation menu.

• Appointment number access: Advisors can now view their carrier contract numbers. To enable this, open Policy/Case setup, navigate to Advisor Communication > Advisor Configuration, and select the Show Advisor Active Appointments option. Advisors will see an Appointment Numbers option in their left navigation menu.

(PMG-143879)

New Advisor Mass Operations

Users can now quickly assign and/or edit license, continuing education and appointment records for multiple advisors and agencies. To access the following commands, go to the Advisor & Agency List, click the Menu button and point to Advanced Options:

• Mass Assign License Records

• Mass Assign Continuing Education Records

• Mass Assign Appointment Records

• Mass Edit License Records

• Mass Edit Continuing Education Records

• Mass Edit Appointment Records

Also, as part of this enhancement, the existing commands Mass Edit Compliance Records and Mass Assign Compliance Records were moved to Menu > Advanced Options. (PMG-298371)

Parent and Child Presale Records

A presale record can now be designated as a "parent" record containing one or more linked "child" presale records. To designate a presale record as a parent, select the new Parent option on the presale Detail content link, and then save the record. Once saved, the parent record displays a new Related Presales content link.

Click that content link to see a list of linked child records. From that list, link existing presale activities or create new ones by clicking the Options button and selecting New 'RelProposalTracking' Record. To unlink presale records, select Unlink Presale. As part of this enhancement, two additional changes were made:

• A Miscellaneous Information section containing five custom alphanumeric fields was added to the bottom of the presale Detail content link.

• Several new columns are now available for addition to the Presale Activity/Proposals List. These include columns for the new Miscellaneous Information fields (AlphaNum1 through AlphaNum5) and well as the following columns: Parent, Parent Id, Alt/Addl Remarks, Alternate/Additional and Batch Indicator.

(PMG-620442)

Other Enhancements

General

• New advisor note types: From the License/Compliance and Cont./Appt. content links of an advisor record, users can now add notes that are specific to appointment, license, continuing education and compliance records. (PMG-131523)

• More advisor appointment statuses: Several new statuses are now available from the Status drop-down list of an appointment record:

- Closed

- Declined

- Hierarchy Change

- Name Change

- JIT/Pending New Business

- Sent to Advisor

- Transferred Away – Withdrawn

- Waiting on Advisor

(PMG-131524, PMG-537856)

• Continuing education credit enhancement: In advisor continuing education records, values entered in the Credits Required field now have two decimal places. (PMG-133957)

• Additional advisor field for presales: In presale activity records, a fifth advisor line was added to the Advisor Information section. (PMG-134916)

• Contact creation from presale activities: While viewing a presale activity record, you can now select Menu > Create New Contact to quickly create a contact containing information about the insured drawn from the Results section of the presale activity. (PMG-139962)

• Incomplete status for advisor contracts: A status called Incomplete is now available for advisor contracts. When this status is used, the Contract No. and Effective Date fields are not required. (PMG-140244)

• Additional columns for presale reports: When creating or modifying Dynamic Reports in the Presale Activity/Proposals category, users now have access to columns from the Advisor Custom table. (PMG-142267)

• Simplified comparison commands: In presale activity records, the VitalLTC Comparison and VitalTerm Comparison commands in the Action drop-down list were replaced with a single command labeled Comparison. (PMG-151433)

• Improved advisor reassignment: When an advisor’s contacts and holdings are reassigned from one advisor to another using the Advisor Reassignment feature, SmartOffice now transfers the Office Code, Region Code and Marketing Manager field data from the new advisor’s record to the holdings. Users who view the details of the primary advisor in those holding records will now see that information. (PMG-154717)

• Improvements for creating presales activities: Two improvements were made to the dialog box that opens when the user selects the Presale - Quick Quote and/or Presale - Requirement option in the Search section’s New menu:

- A Save & Repeat button now allows the user to create multiple similar presale activities more quickly. Clicking this button copies certain data entered into the dialog box—the action, advisor, name, face amount, status, status date, and follow-up date—into the next presale activity.

- The Presale - Quick Quote dialog box now has an Image link that users can click to attach an image to the presale activity (the link becomes available when the Primary Insured field is filled in).

(PMG-215456, DOMR-11524)

• New default role for advisor key relations: On the Key Relations content link of an agency record, newly added advisors are now assigned the role Agent by default to represent the relationship more accurately. Previously, the default role was Employee. (PMG-215896)

• Ability to hide rows in presale Dynamic Reports: When the list of results from a Presale Activity/Proposals-category Dynamic Report is long, users can now make the list more manageable by displaying only selected rows. After tagging the rows, select Menu > List Options > Keep Tagged Rows Only to hide the other rows. (PMG-221646)

• More insurance types for presale activities: The number of lines of business that presale activities can handle was expanded to include group insurance types. (PMG-247924)

• Advisor compliance enhancements: To enable tracking of product training for advisors, the system includes several improvements to the compliance records that are tracked on the advisor License/Compliance content link:

- Four choices were added to the Compliance Type drop-down list—Annuity Suitability (Training), Annual Compliance Certification and Annual Renewal Fees—and the LTC Certificates choice was renamed LTC Certificate (Training).

- Several fields (# of Hours, Amount, AlphaNum1, User-Defined Date) and check boxes (Renewal, Resident) were added. Corresponding columns were also added to the Compliance Status table for use in compliance-related lists Dynamic Reports.

- The dialog box was renamed Compliance Detail to more accurately reflect its content.

(PMG-255027)

• Continuing education record improvements: The following features were added to the continuing education records that are tracked on the advisor License/Compliance content link:

- An AlphaNum1 custom field with a drop-down list was added. Users with the appropriate rights can customize the name and choices for the field.

- A corresponding AlphaNum1 column is now available for the Detailed CE Information list. Users with list layout customization rights can add it to the list.

(PMG-255113)

• Continuing education advanced filter: When creating an advisor filter, users can now select continuing education criteria. A new CE Credits option is available from the Advanced Filter drop-down list in the filter setup dialog box. (PMG-258533)

• Ability to hide presale action and status choices: On the presale activity Detail content link, users with drop-down list customization rights can now hide options in the Action and Status drop-down lists. When these users click the Customize Choice button on these fields, the Drop-down Choice Customization dialog box now contains Hide and Un-Hide buttons. (PMG-272017)

• New status for presale activities: A new choice, In Process, was added to the Status drop-down list on the Detail content link of presale activity records. (PMG-275457)

• New action choice for presale activities: The option Health Quote was added to the Action drop-down list on the presale activity Detail content link. (PMG-285784)

• Enhanced search for presale insured contacts: When specifying the insured party on a presale activity, users now have more flexible search options. Clicking the Presale Insured hyperlink on the presale activity Detail content link now opens a search dialog box that lets users limit their searches to contacts only or businesses only. In addition, when either of those options is selected, a New button appears so that a new contact or business record can be created if necessary. (PMG-336614)

• Quick conversion of group presales into pending cases: While viewing a presale activity for group insurance, users can now select the Menu > Convert to Pending Case command to convert the presale activity into a group policy. (PMG-471203)

• Mandatory presale fields: To resolve issues that prevented advisors from accessing presale activities in some instances, the following changes were made:

- When users create or search for presale activities on the advisor Presale Activity/Proposals tab, the Presale Advisor field is now mandatory.

- When users create or search for presale activities on the contact Presale Activity/Proposals tab, the Presale Insured field is now mandatory.

(PMG-536895)

• New alert for advisor expiration check: When an advisor’s license, contract, appointment or compliance information is set to expire based on the Alarm Before Expiration settings in Policy/Case Setup (Licensing/Contracting Setup > Default Settings), the alert sent to the user assigned to that advisor now reads as follows: “This is an alert that the \[license, contract, appointment, etc.\] for \[advisor name\] will be expiring. An Advisor Request has been added for this alert within SmartOffice.” (PMG-548013)

• Default active advisor/agency list view: The Advisor List, Agency List and Advisor & Agency List now display Active-status advisor and agency records by default. Previously, these lists displayed all advisors and agencies by default. (PMG-565964)

• Presale filtering and field enhancements: Two changes were made to improve presale activity management:

- Users can now filter the Presale Activity/Proposal List by role. A Role drop-down list was added to the Presale Activity/Proposals tabs of contact, advisor and wholesaler records.

- A Presale Owner field was added under the Presale Insured field on the presale activity Detail content link.

(PMG-640698)

• Presale result class field enhancement: On the presale activity Detail content link, the character limit of the Result Class field was increased to 256 from 64. (PMG-671250)

• Improvements to advisor reassignment: The Advisor Reassignment feature was enhanced in two ways:

- The system now allows any holding linked to an advisor to be reassigned, regardless of the advisor's role. Previously, the system allowed reassignment of only those holdings for which the advisor had the Primary Advisor role.

- A Reassigned advisor role was added to the system. Once a holding is reassigned, the old advisor is now added to the holding's advisor list with a role of Reassigned. Note that this change does not apply to advisor roles for which an "Old" role designation already exists in the system (e.g., Old - Primary Advisor, Old - Referral Advisor, Old - Servicing Advisor, Old - Writing Advisor).

(PMG-676676)

Resolved Issues

General

• Users with read-only permissions for Contracts/Appointments/Licenses had access to the Delete command for advisor continuing education records. The command was disabled for these users. (PMG-122480)

• On the Advisor & Agency List, users who applied a filter on the Reserve Acct column and set the value to Yes or No were encountering an incorrect message asking them to select a valid filter. This issue was resolved. (PMG-122486)

• On the Advisor Request List, Compliance-type requests were not displaying the carrier name properly. Also, when sending correspondence from the compliance advisor request Detail content link, users were unable to select the carrier as a recipient. These issues were resolved. (PMG-136192)

• The Assign Contacts to the Current Advisor command was not working when users selected it from the advisor Personal page. The command now works properly. (PMG-138031)

• On the Advisor Obtained Requirement List, located on the advisor Request/Requirement page, the missing Delete command was restored. (PMG-145776)

• When the layout of the agency Detail page was customized to display a list of the agency’s pending cases, not all of the agency’s cases were appearing. This issue was resolved. (PMG-147748)

• The date/time stamp being used in the status history area of an advisor request was the server time. This issue was resolved so that the user’s time is used instead. (PMG-149715)

• Super Users who did not have the Presale Activity/Proposals user right were still able to access that area of the system. This issue was resolved. (PMG-151745)

• When a presale activity was created for a contact with a spouse identified, the spouse’s information was not being transferred to the Co-Insured section of the presale activity record. The information now transfers properly. (PMG-159468)

• The page heading for agency records was sometimes displaying the word “Advisor” instead of “Agency.” Agency page headings now display properly. (PMG-163844)

• When the follow-up date of a presale activity was changed, the system was creating a new calendar activity instead of updating the existing linked activity, resulting in duplicate activities. The system now updates the existing activity. (PMG-166139)

• While using SmartView Case Status, advisors were unable to see cases on which they were secondary advisors. This issue was resolved. Now, when the option Display cases/policies based on Policy Advisor List is selected in Policy/Case Setup under Advisor Communication > Advisor Privacy, the cases are visible to those users. (PMG-170514)

• On the advisor Cont./Appt. content link, users who customized the layout of the Advisor Contract List to add the Created By column from the Created By table found that not all contracts were appearing in the list. (PMG-205622)

• On the advisor Personal page, an issue that occurred when a user clicked the Agency link and then clicked the Search button was resolved. Then the user tried to customize the layout of the Agency List, columns from the Advisor table were available instead of columns from the Agency table. (PMG-209241)

• Under certain circumstances, when a user created an advisor request, removed the automatically assigned manager from the request and selected a new manager, an “insert/update failed” error was occurring when the user tried to save the record. (PMG-211873)

• On the advisor License/Compliance content link, the Documents column in the Advisor License Information section was displaying a value of “Yes” for the first row only. For other rows, the column was displaying “No,” even for records that had documents. (PMG-229855)

• An issue that occurred when users added a Contracting-type requirement to an advisor’s Request/Requirement content link was resolved. When trying to set the request’s status to Completed and add a valid contract for the request, users were encountering a “Your request cannot be completed” error. (PMG-245053)

• Two issues with the advisor/agency Custom content link were resolved:

- The shortcut key CTRL+S was not saving changes.

- Distortions in the page layout were causing unnecessary scroll bars to appear in the browser window.

(PMG-245156)

• The truncated layout of the presale activity Detail content link was corrected, and the length of the User field was increased. (PMG-250599)

• Some users were encountering a “failed to load object” error when they tried to access the advisor Personal content link. This issue was resolved. (PMG-257470)

• Users were encountering an error when they specified a primary contact for an agency or firm record and then tried to save the record. The record now saves properly. (PMG-260050)

• When users sent pending case status reports to advisors using the options All Pending Cases based on Follow-up date and Send one case per letter, the advisor address information in the reports was incorrect. The issue was resolved so that the address is always the advisor’s preferred address. (PMG-262908)

• On the presale activity Detail content link, when a user selected a plan name so that the carrier was automatically selected, saving the record was causing the carrier to be removed. This issue was resolved. (PMG-271843)

• Unsaved requirements in presale activities were appearing in the requirement follow-up list as auto-updated requirements with a type of “0” when the presale activity was converted to a pending case. In addition, users were encountering an error when trying to open these records. Such requirements no longer appear in the follow-up list. (PMG-272310)

• Users were encountering issues with merge codes when running correspondence from the results of Dynamic Reports displaying certain advisor information. To resolve this issue, the command Options > Communication > Correspondence was added to the License Information and Continuing Education Credit Information sections of the advisor License/Compliance content link. The command was also added to the Advisor Contract List and Appointment List sections of the Cont./Appt. content link. (PMG-275029)

• An advisor correspondence issue involving Compliance-category Dynamic Reports was resolved. When the user tagged multiple records in the report results and tried to send letters, the merge codes for compliance records were displaying incorrect data. (PMG-296203)

• After calculating production on an advisor record’s Production content link, users were finding that the record’s other content links no longer had the New command. The command was restored. (PMG-296207)

• An issue with creating a presale activity record from the advisor Presale Activity/Proposals tab was resolved. When the user tried to navigate to the List content link without saving the new record, the system was prompting the user to save the record, but clicking the Yes button displayed a blank prompt. (PMG-298555)

• An issue with advisor/agency key relationships was resolved. In some cases, when an advisor was linked to an agency, two key relationship records were being created for the same advisor: one with the Employee role and another with the Agent role. This issue was resolved. (PMG-305520)

• When users imported advisor and agency records into SmartOffice, the Data Import Wizard was creating records that did not already exist, but it was not updating existing records. This issue, which was also causing errors during the import process in some cases, was resolved. (PMG-306831)

• An issue with policy date range filters was causing incorrect data to display on the advisor Policies tab and on the advisor Personal content link’s production dashboard. This issue was resolved. (PMG-312865)

• When users clicked the Primary Contact or Referred By hyperlink in an agency record, SmartOffice was opening the relevant contact record in read-only mode, preventing users from editing it. This issue was resolved. (PMG-340047)

• In Presale Activity/Proposals-category Dynamic Reports, the Primary Contact column that was available for use in list layouts was from the Company Additional table instead of the Business table. This issue was resolved. (PMG-362251)

• After deleting the record specified in the Supervisor field of an advisor record, users were still able to open the record by clicking the name in the Supervisor field. This issue was resolved. (PMG-535105)

• When a presale activity was created from the contact Presale Activity/Proposals tab, the default value of the Plan Type field was IUL, and users were unable to change it. This issue was resolved so that the field is blank by default and can be edited. (PMG-540583)

SmartView for Advisors

• The user right for displaying the Smart Checks content link was not being enabled automatically in new SmartView for Advisors accounts. This issue was resolved.

• When an advisor had a role of Old - Servicing Advisor or Old - Primary Advisor on a policy, the advisor was not able to view the policy in SmartView for Advisors. This issue was resolved.

• When a user customized the page layout of the advisor Personal content link, the value in the Contact ID# field was appearing masked, and clicking the value was causing it to disappear. This issue was resolved.

• An error that was occurring when users tried to create SmartView for Advisors accounts was resolved.

• An issue that prevented advisors from seeing their pending cases when signing in to SmartView Case Status was resolved. (PMG-194247)

• Resetting the password for a SmartView for Advisors user account was causing the account’s status to change to Enabled. The account status is now set properly to Temporary Password so that the user is prompted to change the password after signing in. (PMG-234762)

• When a SmartView for Advisors user clicked the primary advisor in the Policy Advisor List of a pending case, the dialog box that opened contained a link to the contract name that, when clicked, produced an error. Because SmartView for Advisors users are not supposed to be able to click the contract name, the hyperlink was disabled. (PMG-248552)

• When an advisor record was linked to a SmartView for Advisors user account, the advisor’s Opportunities tab was displaying a blank list, even when opportunities existed. This issue was resolved. (PMG-251446, PMG-254912)

• SmartView Case Status users were unable to sign in using browsers other than Internet Explorer. Sign-in now works correctly on those browsers. (PMG-263776)

• An issue affecting advisors who signed in to SmartView for Advisors through an agency portal’s single sign-on setup was resolved. When those advisors signed out and then later tried to sign in directly through Ebix’s Web site, they were being redirected to the agency portal. (PMG-265736)

• An issue occurred when the primary advisor on a group policy was a SmartView for Advisors user. When that advisor signed in to SmartView for Advisors and viewed the group policy’s details, the Policy Relationship List was displaying contacts that were never added to the policy. This issue was resolved. (PMG-298149)

• Several commands that should not be available to SmartView for Advisors users were removed:

- Copy Pending Case

- Copy Policy

- Copy Group Policy

- Correspondence (removed from the Contact/Advisor Personal and Business/Agency Detail content links)

(PMG-319427)

• For SmartView for Advisors users, the commands Add/Update Record in Outlook and Add/Update Record in Lotus Notes were removed from the Menu in contact records. These commands are not applicable to those users. (PMG-539233)

• SmartView for Advisors users with SmartOffice Format accounts were able to access features that are not intended for them. The following features were removed:

- The Notes (last 30 days) option in the Search drop-down list

- The command Menu > Advanced Options > Extra Fields on contact records

- The command Menu > Advanced Options > Start the Timer on contact records

- The command Menu > Advanced Options > Open Call Scripts from contact, advisor, policy, pending case and group policy records

- The command Menu > Activity Options on advisor records

- The Open Link icon on policy and pending case notes

- The command Menu > New ‘Commission Rate Information’ record and the ability to edit records on the Commission Rates List accessible from the Policy Rider List and the product Detail content link

- The ability to start the group policy creation workflow using the Group Policy option in the New drop-down list without having the rights to create group policies

- The command Menu > Data Feed Setup on carrier records

- The command Menu > Group Product Policy Statistics on group product records

- The command Menu > Communication > Correspondence on group policy and presale activity records

(PMG-561333)

• In offices with office security enabled, SmartView for Advisors users were able to view household records even when the associated contacts were not visible to them. This issue was resolved. (PMG-562048)

SmartPolicies

Featured Enhancements

Page Layout Customization for Policy Records

Users who have the appropriate rights can now customize the information that appears on the policy Basic Information content link. This allows users to select the fields that are most important to them and hide any fields that they do not normally work with. To begin customizing the layout, open a policy record and select Menu > Page Layouts. (PMG-297672)

Ability to Mass Assign an Additional Advisor to Multiple Policies

It is now possible to assign the same non-primary advisor to multiple policies simultaneously. To use this feature, tag multiple policies in a list, select Menu > Advanced Options > Mass Assign Advisor, and then specify the advisor and role. Advisors added to policies in this way are assigned a split percentage of zero. (PMG-676678)

Other Enhancements

• New fields for disability policies: An Important Contacts section was added to the Basic Information page of disability insurance (DI) policies. The section lets users enter POS underwriter, POS rep and file location information. (PMG-132417)

• New merge code: A ProductOption merge code was added to the Policy/Pending Case Management category. (PMG-138640)

• New insurance types: The number of supported insurance types in SmartOffice was expanded with the addition of two types: Dental and Vision. Users who want to work with these policy types can enable them in User Preferences under Policies/Investments. (PMG-148383)

• Renamed Class field on policy insured records: The Class field for policy and pending case insured records was relabeled to be more specific. On the pending case Detail content link, when you open a record from the Policy Insured List, the field is now labeled Proposed Class. The same field on the policy Basic Information and pending case Delivery content links is now labeled Issued Class. (PMG-174099)

• Replacement and Team fields in policy records: Two additions were made to the policy Basic Information content link:

- A Replacement check box was added under Basic Policy Information to indicate whether the policy was purchased to replace an existing policy.

- A Team field was added under Important Contacts to make policy records more consistent with pending case records.

(PMG-215152)

• Medical product and policy enhancements: Several improvements were made to individual medical insurance product and policy records:

- On the product Detail content link, medical products can now be designated as exclusive provider organization (EPO) products using the new EPO choice in the Type drop-down list.

- On the Coverage content link of individual medical policies and pending cases, an Unlimited check box was added next to the Life Time Max field, and a Prescriptions field was added. Both are also available as columns that users with the appropriate rights can add to policy and pending case lists and Dynamic Reports.

(PMG-219219)

• Better handling of negative net cash surrender value: When the Net Cash Surrender Value field of a policy is calculated as a negative value, the system now changes the value to zero. (PMG-228727)

• New benefit field for reports: In long-term care policy and pending case records, a field called Benefit for Reports was added. The amount entered in this field appears in PDF reports such as the Policy Summary. The field was added to address an issue in which amounts entered for maximum lifetime and monthly benefits for these policies were not being reflected in reports. (PMG-255149)

• Improved policy fee calculation: SmartOffice’s method for calculating policy fees now includes a check for the pay method. As part of this change, a Pay Method field was added to the Product Fee Commission dialog box that opens when a user creates or edits a record in the Product Fee List of a carrier or product record. This enhancement was made to accommodate carriers that charge a different policy fee depending on the method of payment. (PMG-257056)

• Better view of policy advisors: In policy records, the height of the Policy Advisor List was increased to minimize scrolling and give users a better at-a-glance view of the advisors on a policy. (PMG-336643)

• New policy advisor roles: Advisors on policies and pending cases can now be assigned the following new roles:

- Additional Advisor 1

- Additional Advisor 2

- Introducer

(PMG-340901)

• New columns for Policy table: Several columns were added to the Policy table in support of the SmartLink for Insurance Brokers feature (currently in beta testing):

- Last Updated by SLIB

- Provider Last Modified On

- SLIB Job ID

(PMG-419415)

• New column for Policy Advisor List: The Modified On column from the Interested Party table is now available for use in the Policy Advisor List on policy records. (PMG-440480)

• New policy relationship roles: Contacts added to the Policy Relationship List of a policy record can now be assigned the new roles of Authorized Signer, Contingent Owner or Tertiary. (PMG-533033, PMG-543051)

• New policy status: A status called Actual Placing Date was added as a system choice for policy records. (PMG-572198)

• Ability to list active policies in correspondence: A new merge code, ActivePolicyList, allows users to automatically pull a list of any contact's Active-status policies into a letter. The policy list is formatted as a table that displays the policy type, product name, carrier name, policy number, policy date, benefits and annual premium of each policy. (PMG-573439)

• Additional columns for deleted policies list: In the Deleted Records area of the system, users can now determine at a glance who deleted particular policies/pending cases and when. Two new columns, Deleted By and Deleted On, can now be added to the Deleted Policy List. (PMG-581799)

• Improved display of policy trustee information: In the Trustee column of the Policy List, a line break was added between each name to improve readability. (PMG-582020)

• Policy list column enhancements: In policy lists, the following enhancements were made to allow for easier sorting:

- A column named Insured Last Name, First Name was added to the Policy table.

- The Trustee column in the Policy table was changed to display the trustee's last name first.

(PMG-582018)

• Proposed/issued class information for second insureds: Users can now add proposed/issued class information for second insureds on pending cases and policies that support second insureds. To view this information, open the second-insured record in the Policy Insured List of a case or policy. The new Proposed Class or Issued Class field is below the Current Risk Class field.

(PMG-582028)

• New annuity and life plan types: Two annuity plan types (Indexed and FPDA) and five life plan types (Permanent, Life Settlement, COL, Group Universal Life (GUL) and Survivorship Universal Life (SUL)) were added to the system. (PMG-596327, PMG-620065)

• Deleted policies retained after merge: After a policy merge, SmartOffice now moves the deleted source policy to the Deleted Records area of the system. Previously, the source policy was being deleted completely after being merged into the target. (PMG-610135)

• Commissionable modal premium recalculation after policy import: During policy import, selecting the Update existing policies based on policy # only option for an import file containing updates to flat extra amounts now automatically recalculates the relevant commissionable modal premium amounts in SmartOffice. (PMG-618163)

• New merge codes for policy relations: Several new merge codes can now be used in correspondence and documents to display information about policy relations in a comma-separated format. The merge codes are AllOwners, BeneficiaryNames, AllTrustees and RelationshipManager. (PMG-621772)

• New group policy paid-to field: The Sys Paid-to field, which was previously available only in individual policies, was added to the group policy Detail content link. The field, which is visible only to SmartCommissions users, is read-only and specifies the Paid-To/Next Due date of the last commission transaction at the point of reconciliation in Carrier Posting. (PMG-625624)

• Higher character limit for policy relationship remarks: In policy relationship records, the character limit of the Remarks field was increased to 1,024 from 255. This change resolves an issue that was preventing users from saving remarks. (PMG-628830)

• Modified Date column import and mass modification: The Modified Date column is now available for mapping in policy import setups and for modification through the Mass Modify feature. (PMG-640667)

• Policy note notification enhancement: In policy notes, when a user selects the Send this note as an alert and e-mail to other user(s) option, the e-mail message now contains the policy number, insured's name, carrier and unique case ID in the subject line. (PMG-662735)

Resolved Issues

• Policy rider import was not adding and updating some fields. This issue was resolved.

• Two issues with the contact Benefits content link were resolved:

- The basic face amount of inforce critical illness policies was not displaying.

- When the contact was the owner but not the insured on a policy, the premium was being reflected but the benefit amount was not.

(PMG-143625)

• Dynamic Reports in the categories Commission Hierarchy, Rider and Pending Case Life Cycle were displaying deleted records. These reports were modified so that they do not include deleted records. (PMG-155313)

• Users were unable to view the payment history on a policy without a SmartCaseManager license. The license is no longer required. (PMG-160058)

• Users who did not have Delete permissions for policy records were unable to access Intra-Office E-mail for policies. Access to that feature was restored for those users. (PMG-182208)

• The Policy Audit PDF report was incorrectly displaying and printing in portrait orientation, causing some information to be truncated. The report now displays and prints properly in landscape orientation. (PMG-195427)

• The Policy Audit PDF report was displaying interested party roles without including the corresponding names. The report now includes a name with each role. (PMG-195942)

• The Mass Modify feature for policies was missing the Paid-to Date field. This issue was resolved. (PMG-197192)

• During policy import, when users selected the Update Existing Policies Based on Policy # Only option, the system was prompting users to map the Primary Insured Last Name field. This unnecessary prompt was removed. (PMG-206077)

• The report options for Policy- and Holding Statement-category PDF reports were missing the Critical Illness policy type, even when the user’s preferences were configured to display those policies. This issue was resolved. (PMG-227162)

• Two issues with calculating the policy fee for a policy were resolved:

- The modal factor was not being selected, and the annual premium was changing to 0. This occurred when a modal factor was set at the carrier level but not the product level.

- When the premium mode for a product fee was set to Annually at the carrier and product levels, the system was taking the policy fee as the annual policy fee and calculating the modal policy fee. The system now takes the product fee as the modal policy fee and calculates the annual policy fee.

(PMG-252551)

• An issue that users encountered while creating a policy import setup was resolved. After clicking the Carrier hyperlink to search for a carrier and then closing the search results list without selecting one, users were encountering an error if they then clicked the Back button. (PMG-257424)

• The system was not properly checking whether a policy’s pay method matched a pay method at the product level when retrieving modal factors. Now, when no match exists, the modal factor with a blank pay method is assigned to the policy. (PMG-274166)

• An issue affecting records in the Policy Insured List and Policy Relationship List of a policy was resolved. The issue occurred when users opened a record from one of those lists, selected a non-preferred address and saved the record. When the record was later reopened, it displayed the preferred address instead of the selected address. (PMG-274496)

• When an office’s settings specified a secure delivery text prefix, pending case e-mail correspondence sent to the case’s primary contact was omitting the prefix from the subject line, even when the Send Secure correspondence option was selected. This issue was resolved. (PMG-280193)

• During policy import, when users selected the option to add advisor records that did not already exist in SmartOffice, the advisors’ names were not appearing in the Policy List after import was complete. This issue was resolved. (PMG-301939)

• A “failed to load object” error that occurred during the policy merge process was resolved. (PMG-303845)

• An issue affecting the list view on the contact Policies and Pending Cases tabs was resolved. After changing the list view on those tabs using the Role drop-down list and then navigating away, users who later navigated back to those tabs were finding that SmartOffice was forgetting their Role selection and reverting to the default. (PMG-304483)

• Several issues with correspondence related to policies and pending cases were resolved:

- When the status of a multi-life policy changed, the automated correspondence workflow was not working properly.

- When the page layout of the pending case Detail content link was customized and a case’s status was changed, users were encountering a message stating that letters were associated with that status when they were actually associated with a different status. In addition, the message was appearing for pending cases even though it applies only to the policy area of the system.

- Automated letters were being sent to the primary advisor, primary contact and carrier on a policy even when the policy’s status differed from the status configured in Policy/Case Setup for sending those letters.

(PMG-306166)

• Two issues with policy imports were resolved:

• - During import setup, when users chose not to add contacts that did not already exist in SmartOffice, the Data Import Log was showing that contacts were added after the import was completed, even when contacts were not added.

- Policies that were skipped during import because they contained no primary insured information were appearing in the Data Import Log with a status of “0” instead of Skipped.

(PMG-316143)

• When a policy import file contained an updated name for the policy insured, the Policy Relationship List in the existing policy record in SmartOffice was not reflecting the change. This issue was resolved. (PMG-337706)

• An issue that was causing the cash values of certain policies to be incorrectly calculated as zero during contact validation was resolved. The issue occurred because calculations intended only for variable universal life and indexed universal life policies were being run for other policy types. (PMG-343392)

• When a policy was imported multiple times through the Data Import Wizard, SmartOffice was creating multiple entries for the policy’s primary advisor in the Policy Advisor List. This issue was resolved. (PMG-488958)

• When attempting to merge policy records, users were encountering a “failed to load object” error when the policies had a different premium mode or a missing policy date. This issue was resolved. (PMG-488899)

• When users imported policies without mapping policy status, SmartOffice was improperly deleting the statuses of any matching policies in SmartOffice. The system now keeps existing policy status information when status is unmapped during import. (PMG-531998)

• An issue that occurred when users added or imported a rider into a policy was resolved. When users entered different values for the Modal Premium and Comm Modal fields and then saved the record, the Comm Modal value was changing to the Modal Premium value. This issue was resolved. (PMG-532348)

• A “processing cancelled” error that was occurring during policy merge operations was resolved. (PMG-539209)

• Users were encountering a “processing cancelled” error when trying to assign multiple policies from one advisor to another using the Advisor Reassignment command. This issue was resolved. (PMG-550325)

• Performing a policy merge was creating an incorrect entry in the SmartPad. The entry was corrected. (PMG-559397)

• When the names of two insurance products in SmartOffice partially matched the name of the plan in an imported policy, the imported policy was being linked to the wrong product in some instances. This issue was resolved. (PMG-567790)

• On the Coverage content link of a medical policy, the Deductible, Co-Payment and Out of Pocket fields were not accepting values greater than 32,767. This issue was resolved. (PMG-569244)

• When policies with statuses that do not exist in SmartOffice were imported, the new records were displaying a number as their status. This issue was resolved. (PMG-589995)

• Property Casualty was removed from the list of available insurance types in the system. (PMG-593154)

Insurance Products and Carriers

Enhancements

• Carrier- and product-level GA ID tracking: SmartOffice now enables users to maintain general agency ID (GA ID) information at the carrier and product levels. A GA ID List section was added to the carrier Misc Information content link and the product Detail content link. (PMG-275476)

• Additional product field: On the product Detail content link, a field labeled EPC was added to the Product Information section. The field stores the Ebix Product Code, a unique identifier defined by Ebix that will be used for future SmartOffice enhancements. (PMG-288768)

• Risk class added: A new risk class, Preferred Best, was added to the system. (PMG-339853)

• New disability insurance types: When creating or editing disability insurance (DI) products, users now have two new choices in the Type drop-down list on the Detail content link: Key Person and Retirement Security. (PMG-396415)

Resolved Issues

• When a product was changed from a variable product to a non-variable product, the Subaccount content link was still visible in the product record. This issue was resolved so that only variable products display subaccount information. (PMG-122482)

• While viewing the Carrier List, some users were encountering an error message when they selected Menu > Advanced Options > HO Requirements and then clicked the Search button. This issue was resolved. (PMG-144657)

• An issue that occurred when a non-Super User added HO Rep and Underwriter contacts to a carrier record was resolved. After adding the contacts, the user was receiving a “Your action cannot be completed” error when trying to access the contacts. (PMG-239829)

• Two issues with the Variable Product option on the Detail content link of  VUL, VA and IUL products were resolved:

- These products were displaying the Subaccounts content link even when the Variable Product option was cleared.

- Underwriting guidelines added to these products were not visible on the Underwriting Guidelines and Notes content link until the Variable Product option was selected.

(PMG-242064)

• The Carrier Subscription content link in Office Settings was available only to users who had the Pending Case & Policy Setup Administrator license. This issue was resolved so that the content link’s availability is now tied to the Policy Tracking license instead. (PMG-274184)

• When the name of an insurance product contained an apostrophe, SmartOffice was automatically capitalizing the character after the apostrophe. This issue was resolved. (PMG-463287)

SmartCaseManager

Featured Enhancements

Improved Control over New Requirements

SmartOffice now provides enhanced control over the status and required-of settings that the system automatically assigns to new pending case requirements.

Previously, the status and required-of settings in Policy/Case Setup > PCM Workflows > Initial PCM Workflow applied to all new requirements. With this enhancement, users can now specify different settings for specific requirement sub-types.

To do so, navigate to Follow-Up > Requirements in Policy/Case Setup and create a follow-up cycle for any requirement sub-type.

Notice the two new fields at the bottom: Status and Required Of. When a requirement is created for a pending case, the system first checks here for the appropriate status and required-of settings. If no such settings are found, SmartOffice uses the defaults established in PCM Workflows > Initial PCM Workflow.

For example, users can specify that new underwriting requirements with a Paramedical sub-type and a status of Outstanding are required of the service provider, while all other new requirement sub-types use the system required-of default setting (e.g., the advisor). (PMG-140818)

Informal Application Improvements

Several changes were made to enhance SmartOffice’s handling of informal child pending cases that are formalized.

Formalized cases are now listed on a new Formal Application content link available on all informal parent cases.

 Clicking an entry in the list displays the details of the formalized case.

In addition, when a user selects the Menu > Formalize command to formalize a child informal case, SmartOffice now immediately opens the dialog box that enables the user to also change the status of the parent case and/or any other child cases. (PMG-138674)

More Flexible Issued/Delivery Workflows

To provide more automated workflow options for issued and delivered policies, SmartOffice now allows unique issued/delivery workflows for any combination of case status and line of business. Previously, the system allowed only one workflow per line of business.

Administrators can access this new capability by opening Policy/Case Setup, navigating to PCM Workflows > Issued/Delivery Workflow and creating workflows normally. SmartOffice displays a warning only if the administrator tries to create more than one workflow for the same status/line-of-business combination; otherwise, multiple issued/delivery workflows can be created for a single line of business. Administrators can still create a workflow that applies to all lines of business for a given status, and the system will use that workflow if a more specific workflow does not exist.  

While creating a workflow, users will also notice that a blank choice was added to the Change Approval Received Requirement Status to drop-down list. This enables the user to specify that no change to the approval-received requirement should be made as part of the workflow. (PMG-261489)

Advisor Compliance Enhancements

Changes related to two recently added advisor compliance types—Annuity Suitability (Training) and Annual Compliance Certification—were made in several areas of the system.

In Policy/Case Setup, under Licensing/Contracting Setup > Default Settings, fields for the new compliance types were added so that administrators can specify default advisor check prompting settings for new carrier records, as well as default actions that the system should take when advisors do not meet compliance requirements.

Similarly, options for verification and default actions related to the new compliance types were added to the carrier PCM Options content link. (PMG-288766)

Other Enhancements

• Case Status report layout adjustment: In Case Status reports, the Remarks column now appears under the requirement name so that remarks do not require as much text wrapping. (PMG-133051)

• Expanded pending case page layout customization: When customizing the layout of the pending case Detail content link, users now have access to the Additional Information portlet. (PMG-142851)

• New informal application statuses: Two new informal application statuses are now available: Opportunity - Open and Opportunity - Close. (PMG-148412)

• Insurance type defaults for new presales activities and pending cases: Administrators can now set default insurance types for new presale activities, new presale requirements and new pending cases. This feature reduces the number of clicks for users who work frequently with a particular insurance type. To set the presale defaults, open Policy/Case Setup and navigate to Follow-up > Presale Activity/Proposals. Look for the new Insurance Type drop-down lists for new presale activities and new presale requirements.

To set the defaults for new pending cases, go to PCM Workflows > PCM Add Setup and note the Insurance Type drop-down lists for formal and informal cases (defaults for the Variable Product and Second Insured options can also be specified here).

(PMG-158400, PMG-576327)

• Additional policy/case statuses: The following pending case/policy statuses were added (the associated stage for each is in parentheses):

- Administrative Clean-Up (Inactive)

- Approved Better than Applied (Approved)

- Await Agent Signatures (Underwriting)

- Await Case Manager Review (Underwriting)

- Await Exam (Underwriting)

- Await Inforce Verification (Issued)

- Awaiting Principle Review (Issued)

- Awaiting Signature (Underwriting)

- Case Closed - Change Carrier (Inactive)

- Case Closed - OTA (Inactive)

- Dual Submitted (Underwriting)

- Error in Processing (Inactive)

- Flipped (Underwriting)

- Lost to Competition (Inactive)

- New (Active)

- Renew (Active)

- Rewrite (Active)

- Sale Not Approved by Supervisor (Inactive)

- Sent to the Carrier (Underwriting)

- Suitability Completed (Underwriting)

- Supervisory Trade Approval (Issued)

- Unfulfilled Requirements (Inactive)

(PMG-188227, PMG-166594, PMG-264972, PMG-276952, PMG-470867, PMG-530835, PMG-667475)

• Editable Keywords field: On the Activity/Mail content link of a policy or pending case, the Keywords field is now editable when the user views an activity. (PMG-192880)

• Requirement follow-up export: From the requirement Follow-Up list (Insurance > Requirement Follow-Ups), users can now use SmartOffice’s export feature (Menu > List Options > Export List) to save the list data to an XLS (Excel), CSV (comma-separated values), XML or TAB-separated file. (PMG-203067)

• Requirement ID column for requirements Dynamic Reports: The Requirement ID column from the Requirements table can now be added to the column layouts of requirement lists and Dynamic Reports in the Pending Case family (Requirements category). (PMG-204894)

• Merge code for submitted date: A new SubmittedDate merge code enables users to automatically insert the last Submitted entry from a pending case’s status history into letters. (PMG-230224)

• Policy notes in reports: Users can now generate Dynamic Reports that include policy notes. A new Policy Notes category was added to the Notes family of Dynamic Reports for this purpose. (PMG-231266)

• Ability to filter case manager list by office: When selecting the case manager for a pending case or advisor, the user can now filter the list of available users by office using the new Office List drop-down list.  (PMG-235129)

• Additional case processing type options: The following options were added to the Processing Type drop-down list on the pending case Detail and policy Basic Information content links: Complex Change, New Application, Policy Increase, Reinstatement, Reissue and Re-rate. (PMG-235161)

• Expanded case status configuration: In Policy/Case Setup, several options were added to the PCM Communication > Case Status Setup section to provide more flexibility in configuring pending case status reports:

- Two new options were added: Include Rate Information and Include Last Requirement Notes.

- The ability to specify default settings for the following case status options was added: Send one case per letter, Show office logo, Mask Policy #/Name, Include informal cases, Include informal child cases, Include group pending cases, Include POS requirements.

 (PMG-235162)

• Policy and pending case report enhancements: When customizing the layout of a Policy- or Pending Case-category Dynamic Report, users now have access to columns in the Interested Party and Issued Rating tables. (PMG-235163)

• New case approval workflow restored: The feature that enabled users to change the status of a pending case before the approval workflow begins was restored after several issues were resolved. Changes made to the feature include:

- When the user selects the Approved check box on the pending case Detail content link, the dialog box that enables the user to change the case’s status now displays the primary insured’s name and the proposed class.

- In Policy/Case Setup, the Approval Received workflow configuration dialog box now allows administrators to set up a workflow for any status/line of business combination. Previously, workflows could be created only by line of business.

- When multiple Approval Received workflows are configured, those that apply to a specific line of business take precedence over those that apply to all lines of business.

(PMG-240527)

• More detailed pending case note alerts: When a user creates a pending case note and selects the Send this note as an alert and e-mail to other user(s) option, the alert now contains additional detail about the case: insured name, carrier, unique case ID and policy number. (PMG-259581)

• Contact information in HO requirements: An HO requirement record now identifies the contact that the requirement pertains to, enabling users to more easily process requirements for second insureds on survivorship cases. (PMG-277237)

• Column identifying user who modified policy/case: A Case Modified By column was added to the Holding table for policy and pending case lists. This column identifies the SmartOffice user who last modified any of the following data on a policy or case: basic policy/pending case details, requirements, pending case/policy notes, delivery details, interested parties, benefits, riders, additional information, policy transactions, status. (PMG-301955)

• Expanded options for initial PCM workflow: In the PCM Workflows section of Policy/Case Setup, an All option was added to the Required Of drop-down lists for the following initial PCM workflow fields:

- Mark underwriting requirement as completed when status is changed to

- Mark delivery requirement as completed when status is changed to

(PMG-302513)

• Changes in advisor checks on pending case creation: When a pending case is created, the system now performs an annuity suitability check on the advisor only for annuity cases. Similarly, the system now performs an annual compliance certification check only for annuity and life cases (but not term life cases). (PMG-305869)

• Requirement expiration date improvements: Several changes related to the Expiration date column on the pending case Requirements content link were made:

- The method of calculating the date was improved. The system now takes the requirement’s completed date and adds the value in the Medical Expiration field of the associated carrier record.

- The date is now calculated only when a medical facility, doctor or service provider is specified on the requirement.

- The corresponding Expiration Date field was added to the underwriting requirement detail dialog box.

(PMG-307520)

• Trustee information in policy and pending case lists: When customizing the layout of the Policy List and Pending Case List, users can now add the Trustee column to display trustee information for each policy. The column belongs to the Policy table. (PMG-319436)

• Ability to add longer remarks to requirements: In pending case requirement records, the character limit of the Requirement Remarks field was increased to 4,000 from 1,024. (PMG-341422)

• Keywords field for pending cases: A Keywords field was added to the pending case Detail content link under Basic Policy Information. This makes pending case records more consistent with policy records, which already contain this field. (PMG-345038)

• Pending case column enhancements: Several improvements were made to the columns used in pending case lists:

- In the HOLDING table, the Case Modified On and Case Modified By columns were removed. Users can now use the Modified On and Modified By columns from that table instead. Like the removed columns, these columns are updated anytime data in any of the following tables is updated: HOLDING, POLICY, NEWBUS, REQUIREMENT, SMARTPAD (only for LINKTABLE 23), NBDELIVERY, RIDER, POLICYADDLINFO, COMMPOLTRAN, POLTRANSACTION, NBHISTORY, LIFE\_TABLE, DISBLTY\_TABLE, MEDICAL\_TABLE, AUTO\_TABLE, HOMEOWN\_TABLE, OPOLICY\_TABLE, UMBRELLA\_TABLE, ANNUITY\_TABLE, LTC\_TABLE, CRTILLNESS\_TABLE.

- In the INTERESTPARTY table, the Case Modified By column was removed because it was unnecessary.

- In INSPRODUCT\_TABLE, ANNUITY\_TABLE and CRTILLNESS\_TABLE, the Modified On column was removed because it was unnecessary.

(PMG-349871)

• Option to mark POS requirements as completed in Policy/Case Setup: In the PCM Workflows section of Policy/Case Setup, the Initial PCM Workflow now includes an option to automatically mark policy owner service (POS) requirements as completed when a pending case is changed to a specified status. (PMG-370513)

• Increased character limit for benefit remarks: On the Benefits content link of pending case records, the maximum number of characters allowed in the Remarks field was increased to 4,000. (PMG-489189)

• Informational message about case status service: In Policy/Case Setup, users who enable the Use Case Status Service option under PCM Workflows > Initial PCM Workflow now see a message explaining the purpose of that option. (PMG-536649)

• New pending case Dynamic Report: A report category called Requirements - Include Rating was added to the Pending Case family of Dynamic Reports. The new report displays a case's requirements and information about the required-of insured for each. The report includes requirements for child informal cases. (PMG-557466)

• Quick link to parent case from informal case: Informal child pending cases now contain a Show Parent link that users can click to navigate instantly to the associated parent case. The new link is located under the Keywords field on the informal child pending case Detail content link. (PMG-558415)

• Improved workflow for closing cases: When the system asks the user whether any follow-up dates for a closed case should also be removed, clicking the Yes button now also changes the status of any outstanding requirements to Canceled. This change allows users to run reports for requirement aging that exclude closed cases and their requirements. (PMG-589302)

• Improved generation of requirements: Two change were made to enhance the way in which standard underwriting requirements are generated in pending cases:

- A lack of gender information for the insured no longer prevents unisex requirements from generating.

- Proper error messages now appear when generation does not occur, such as when the face amount was missing.

(PMG-636729)

Resolved Issues

• An issue that preventing users from editing pending case team names from the Pending Case Team List was resolved.

• The Interest Percent column for policies and pending cases was displaying negative values. The column was modified to display only positive values. (PMG-122481)

• Several issues with automated correspondence workflows related to presale activities and pending cases were resolved:

- Correspondence workflows configured to start when the status of a presale activity was Open were failing to start. This issue affected presale activities that were not linked to a pending case.

- When the user created a pending case, the correspondence workflow for automatically added requirements was failing to start.

- When the user changed the status of a pending case to Issued, SmartOffice was prompting the user to send a letter instead of displaying a message to that effect in the Automated Letter Workflow dialog box.

(PMG-134919)

• When customizing the page layout of disability insurance (DI) pending case records, users were finding that the Team and Case Manager fields were mandatory. These fields are no longer mandatory. (PMG-135451)

• An issue that prevented the Case Status preview dialog box from expanding completely was resolved. (PMG-136773)

• Advisors were receiving pending case status reports by e-mail even when the Do not e-mail option was selected on those advisors’ records. The system now properly checks advisor communication privacy options before sending case status e-mail reports. (PMG-137148)

• Users who have the SmartCase Viewer license were unable to view pending case notes. Notes are now visible to these users. (PMG-137233)

• An incorrect prompt that appeared when users created Other pending case types was resolved. The issue occurred in the Pending Case Add Detail dialog box, when users clicked the Plan Name hyperlink and then went through the process of creating a new product. Clicking the Finish button to save the new case was producing the prompt, “Select Carrier(s) to add as alias.” (PMG-137419)

• An issue that prevented users from properly sorting on the Sent On column in the pending case Letter Log was resolved. (PMG-142673)

• An issue was occurring when the office’s initial pending case workflow was configured to automatically assign the case manager specified on the primary advisor’s record to new cases. When a second advisor was added to a case, SmartOffice was improperly updating the case manager on the case to match the case manager specified on the new advisor’s record. The system now retains the original case manager associated with the primary advisor. (PMG-149416)

• When users changed the insured on a pending case and then added a rider, the rider was not listed even when the age and face bandings matched. This issue was resolved. (PMG-171162)

• In underwriting requirement records, two issues with the Requirement Remarks field were resolved:

- When users pasted text containing apostrophes or quotation marks into the field, SmartOffice was converting those characters into upside-down question marks.

- When the field contained an ampersand (&), e-mail pending case status reports sent to advisors were displaying the message “Value cannot be displayed” instead of the remarks.

(PMG-182431)

• Several issues related to underwriting requirements were resolved:

- Automatically generated requirements added to an informal parent case were not visible on the Requirements content links of child cases.

- When users added an underwriting requirement to an informal parent case through a Quick Receipt workflow, they were encountering an error message that normally displays only when the new requirement is of a type other than Underwriting.

- The Select Plan Type dialog box was appearing when users tried to create an informal pending case.

- After formalizing an informal child case, users were seeing the Related Policies content link on the formalized case even when the MultiLife Policy option was cleared on the case’s Detail content link.

(PMG-204855)

• When certain merge codes used in pending case correspondence were expanded, there was no space between the colon and the text that followed. This issue was resolved. (PMG-208834)

• Two issues affecting informal child cases were resolved:

- Users were unable to change the status to anything other than Informal Application.

- After changing the status to Quote Canceled and saving the case, users were being prompted to enter a plan name, which is normally not required.

(PMG-214140)

• Documents uploaded to the Letters/Documents content link of a child informal pending case were being added to the parent informal case record instead. Documents now post properly to the child case. (PMG-224255)

• Certain users who tried to change the date/status of a pending case requirement were encountering an issue in which requirement status dates were being set to the previous day. The issue, which affected users with certain time zone settings in SmartOffice and on their computers, was resolved. (PMG-235731)

• When a user changed the follow-up date of an open pending case requirement using the Options > Change Date/Status command from a list view, the change was not being logged in the requirement history. This issue was resolved. (PMG-237585)

• Users were encountering a “failed to load object” error when using the Reset Follow-Up Date command for group requirements on the requirement Follow-Up list. This issue was resolved. (PMG-242859)

• When a pending case did not specify a proposed risk class, Dynamic Reports that included the Proposed Class column were displaying a value of “All Classes” for these cases instead of displaying a “Blank” value. A similar issue affected the Issued Class column. These issues were resolved. (PMG-245684)

• In the Informal PCM Workflows section of Policy/Case Setup, an issue with the workflow for creating automatic office/agency requirements was resolved. When the user clicked the Back button to change the LOB field to All and then continued to the next step, any underwriting guidelines the user added were not appearing in the Underwriting Guidelines list. (PMG-257367)

• The following informal application statuses were removed from the Underwriting All pending case stage because they indicate cases that are inactive or closed:

- Informal Canceled

- Informal Incomplete

- Opportunity - Close

- Quote Canceled

- Quote Incomplete

(PMG-259166)

• Users were not being prompted to send a letter when they clicked the Approved check box on the Detail content link of a pending case in the Underwriting stage. The prompt was restored. (PMG-261095)

• When a user created a pending case in which the insured was a business, certain office/agency requirements configured at the carrier level were not being automatically added to the case. The requirements are now added properly. (PMG-261438)

• A correspondence issue related to the F\_Agent\_Code merge code was resolved. In letters sent to a carrier from a pending case, the merge code was not displaying data. (PMG-262814)

• Users who made changes to delivery and policy owner service (POS) requirements using the editable spreadsheet feature were encountering “failed to load object” errors when they tried to save those changes. These errors were resolved. (PMG-264095)

• When users tried to enter a new requirement note to a pending case, the dialog box for entering the note was not opening all the way. The dialog box now opens properly. (PMG-269183)

• The day/date combination displayed at the top of the requirements follow-up list was incorrect. The correct day and date are now displayed. (PMG-269621)

• Two issues that occurred when a pending case’s status was changed to Approved were resolved:

- For cases with multiple insured contacts, users were being prompted to send a letter and reproject commissions multiple times.

- When the user agreed to send a letter to the insured contact, the Automatic Correspondence section of the Case Message Center dialog box contained a duplicate template entry for the primary contact.

(PMG-280486)

• When trying to add an address to a record in the Policy Insured List or Policy Relationship List, users were encountering an error incorrectly stating, “You are not authorized to add a new record(s) or modify any record(s) in this module.” This error was resolved. (PMG-281000)

• When users created a presale activity with a requirement and linked the requirement to an existing pending case, the requirement was not displaying on the Requirements content link of the pending case record. Linked requirements now display as expected. (PMG-285421)

• When the stage of an informal child case was changed to Closed Formalized, the system was not prompting the user to close any open requirements. This issue was resolved. (PMG-285690)

• An issue affecting multi-life policy and multi-life informal application records was resolved. When users tried to add commissionable premium payment transactions to child policies, the payments were not displaying in the child policy transaction list. (PMG-287803)

• Users were encountering errors when they tried to export contact records containing data in the following areas:

- Exchange Information List (pending case Detail content link, Inforce Request field)

- Endorsement List (policy Coverage content link)

(PMG-288243)

• The unnecessary prompt to manually send a letter when a pending case reached the Approved stage was removed. (PMG-288474)

• Two issues with the pending case Approval workflow were resolved:

- When users were prompted to select the case’s status, the choices in the Status drop-down list were not alphabetized, making specific statuses difficult to find.

- When the Policy Relationship dialog box opened, the Current Risk Class field was blank even when the proposed class was selected.

(PMG-289124)

• When a user changed a pending case’s status to Issued and then tried to send correspondence manually, the system was displaying letter templates whose purpose was PCM/UW instead of PCM/DR. Users now see the correct templates. (PMG-291963)

• After changing the status of a pending case to Inforce and saving the record, users who then changed any field in the case were being incorrectly prompted to rebuild the advisory hierarchy. This issue was resolved. (PMG-292034)

• An issue that was preventing users from saving changes to the Benefits, PCM Custom and Additional Info content links of informal child pending cases was resolved. (PMG-295354)

• Columns from the Proposed Rating table were not displaying data in pending case lists and Dynamic Reports. To resolve this issue, SmartOffice now provides users with two new columns, Proposed Rating Information (for pending cases) and Issued Rating Information (for policies). These columns display Rate, Rate Reason, Rating % and Rating Remarks. (PMG-298680)

• When users imported advisor records through the Data Import Wizard, duplicate entries for the NPN column were available for mapping. This issue was resolved. (PMG-300393)

• When changing the status of a policy to an Issued status and triggering the automated correspondence workflow, users were encountering a “failed to load object” error when clicking the Yes button to send correspondence. This error was resolved. (PMG-300509)

• Users were receiving an “insert/update failed” error when changing the follow-up date on a presale activity that did not specify a presale insured. This error was resolved. (PMG-304680)

• Several issues with automated correspondence workflows were resolved:

- When prompted to send correspondence after a presale activity automatically created a pending case, users who tried to send an e-mail message were encountering a “failed to load object” error.

- Automatic correspondence workflows for generic group requirements were being triggered improperly when underwriting requirements were modified on pending cases.

- When underwriting requirements for informal applications were modified, the system was presenting policy owner service (POS) requirement-specific letters for correspondence.

- When the status of an underwriting requirement was modified using the spreadsheet-style Edit Mode, the system was launching the letter workflow for generic POS requirements.

(PMG-305101)

• On the pending case team Detail content link, the Team Name field was read only. Users can now edit the field. (PMG-308702)

• Several issues with automated pending case correspondence workflows were resolved:

- In the Letter Setup > Requirement Specific section of Policy/Case Setup, the Requirement Sub-Type column was not displaying any values.

- Automated correspondence workflows were not working for SmartWholesaler users.

- Automated correspondence workflows that were supposed to begin when users navigated away from advisor and group requirement areas of the system were beginning even when the user did not navigate away.

- For group policy requirements, users were being presented with letter templates related to generic underwriting requirements.

- For informal application underwriting requirements, users were being presented with letter templates related to POS requirements.

- Users were being presented with letter templates specific to underwriting requirements for all requirements whose status matched the status specified in the letter setup.

(PMG-317333)

• Two issues with the Requirements History List in the requirement detail dialog box were resolved:

- The requirement Remarks column was not reflecting changes made to remarks.

- Text in the requirement history Remarks column contained

tags.

(PMG-319280)

• When the layout of the pending case Detail content link was customized, the Link ID, Esig Opt In/Out and Linked Opportunities fields were missing. These fields were restored. (PMG-321767)

• In informal child cases, users were encountering the message “Tag one record first” when switching from one content link to another multiple times. This issue was resolved. (PMG-321822)

• In Requirements-category Dynamic Reports, users were unable to open a requirement’s remarks for editing directly from the report results list. To resolve this issue, the system now lets users click the first-column hyperlink of a requirement to view its details; the remarks can be edited from there. (PMG-323254)

• In Policy- and Pending Case-category Dynamic Reports, the Primary Advisor column from the Contact table could not be added to the report layout because it was missing. The column was restored. (PMG-336705)

• Case managers were being notified that the advisor’s variable annuity appointment had expired, even when they were processing cases involving other lines of business. This issue occurred when the Annuity - Variable line of business was added to an Active-status advisor appointment record with a past end date. (PMG-337969)

• Delivery requirements created as part of the Approval Received workflow and given a completed date were being given a follow-up date when the policy was later issued/delivered. This issue was resolved. (PMG-338608)

• In the Requirements section of Policy/Case Setup, a “failed to load object” error that users were encountering when merging requirements was resolved. (PMG-344825)

• The annual premium on a pending case was being calculated incorrectly when the policy fee was configured for the Annual mode. This issue was resolved. (PMG-362191)

• Several issues with pending case status reports were resolved:

- Remarks were shaded differently from their related requirements, which made the report harder to understand.

- Remarks and notes were displaying an extraneous “A” character is certain cases when the text was originally entered in SmartOffice using Internet Explorer.

- The blue title bar for requirements was not being displayed until the last column for informal cases.

(PMG-482885)

• An error that occurred when users tried to print letters containing the IntellisysBarcode merge code was resolved. (PMG-484440)

• When the Requirement Remarks field of a pending case requirement contained quotation marks, letters generated from SmartOffice that included those remarks were displaying the HTML entity " instead of the proper punctuation. This issue was resolved. (PMG-530165, PMG-551002)

• When the Contact Name column from the Interested Party table was added to an Interested Parties-category Dynamic Report, running the report was producing a “failed to load object” error. The reports now run without error. (PMG-533152)

• Users with the SmartCase Viewer license were seeing the New button on the Search Pending Cases dialog box when they selected Insurance > Pending Cases from the side menu. This button was removed, because these users can search and view pending cases but cannot create them. (PMG-534177)

• An issue that occurred when a user marked a requirement as Received on an Await Approval-status pending case was resolved. When the user opted to send an automated letter and clicked the Default letter for Advisors hyperlink to select a letter template, the template search was incorrectly set to display letters with a purpose of PCM/DR instead of PCM/UW. (PMG-538508)

• An issue that caused uneven shading in the Requirements section of e-mailed Case Status reports was resolved. (PMG-541037)

• An issue that was causing approval remarks to populate for all Approval-type underwriting requirements was resolved. The remarks now populate only for those requirements that are created through the Await Approval workflow. (PMG-541074)

• Users who tried to export the list of child informal cases on an informal parent case were encountering an “invalid data from server” error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-542076)

• On the Underwriting Requirement List of a pending case, users who selected Options > Switch to Edit Mode to work in the spreadsheet were encountering an issue with completion dates. The issue occurred when users changed the Status and Required Of columns to match the settings specified in Policy/Case Setup for automatically marking requirements as completed. SmartOffice was automatically filling in the completion dates as expected, but after saving the spreadsheet and returning to the requirements list, users were finding that the completion dates were not being saved. (PMG-543759)

• An issue that was causing e-mail Case Status reports to display incorrect Entered dates for pending cases was resolved. (PMG-544917)

• The Copy Policy, Copy Pending Case and Copy Group Policy commands under Menu > Advanced Options were available to users who had Read-Only permissions for those record types. The commands were removed for these users. (PMG-546478)

• The daily service that automatically sends Case Status reports to advisors based on policy follow-up dates was not working unless users accessed the PCM Communication section of Policy/Case Setup and selected Menu > Save. This issue was resolved. (PMG-555726)

• An issue involving carriers whose status was Inactive or No PCM Activity was resolved. When users selected these carriers during the pending case creation process, carrier and product information was being filled in automatically, allowing the user to proceed with creating the case. (PMG-556991)

• Users were unable to select a rider product when adding a rider to an annuity pending case. This issue was resolved. (PMG-557223)

• In the Pending Case Add Detail dialog box, fields that the system had previously filled in automatically were no longer being prefilled. This issue was resolved. (PMG-560368)

• When exporting the list of child cases from an informal pending case record, users were finding that the exported columns were not matching the columns in the SmartOffice list layout. This issue was resolved. (PMG-578322)

SmartBenefits

Featured Enhancements

Expanded Employee Census Records

The Employee Census Details dialog box now allows for more detailed tracking of a business’s employees with the addition of several fields and options. The changes were as follows:

• Member Type field: This field was added to the Employee Census Information section.

• New coverage options: In the Coverage Information section, fields were added for dental, vision, life and short-term disability (STD) coverage. In addition, all of the drop-down lists in this section now contain options for Employee & Children and Waived.

• Quote information: A Quote Information section was added.

• Family members: A Family Members section was added to the bottom of the dialog box, enabling users to add spouse and dependent information for the employee.

(PMG-262218)

Other Enhancements

• Custom field enhancement: Group product and group policy records now have a Custom content link, enabling users with the appropriate rights to create fields for tracking group product data not normally tracked by SmartOffice. (PMG-139390)

• New column for group policy lists and reports: The Primary Contact column is now available for use in the Group Policy List and in Group Policy-category Dynamic Reports. (PMG-142740)

• New way to access benefit information in group policies: On the Group Plans content link of a group policy record, users can now access benefit information for group plans using sub-content links. For example, while viewing the list of group plans available for a group dental policy, user can now click the General Dental sub-content link to see detailed benefit information. (PMG-148401)

• Priority column for lists and report: The Priority field on the group policy Detail content link is now available as a column that can be added to group policy lists and Dynamic Reports. (PMG-288122)

• New Customer # field: A Customer # field was added to the Detail content link on group policies. The new field is intended to accommodate group carriers that use a customer number instead of a policy number to reference their policies. (PMG-471241)

• Improved advisor information on group policies: On the group policy Detail content link, advisor information is now contained in a separate Policy Advisor List section, similar to how this information is presented in individual policy records. Previously, group policies contained only a Primary Advisor field; with this enhancement, that field is no longer necessary and was removed. (PMG-471269)

• Periodic group certificate updates: A process now runs once per minute to detect group policies that have been modified and automatically update the associated group certificates. Previously, group certificates were being updated immediately after group policies were modified, and the process was timing out when high numbers of group members were involved. Customers who have access to their SmartOffice server configurations can enable or disable this process and control how often it runs using the new element in the server config.xml file:

true

com.ezdata.cdsportal.data.grouppolicy.GroupCertificateService

true

1

 (PMG-550824)

Resolved Issues

• Two issues with several Group Policy-category PDF reports were resolved:

- The reports were displaying the advisor’s business name instead of the advisor’s name.

- The reports were displaying HTML tags in the business address when the address contained multiple lines.

(PMG-136017)

• For group policies linked to a primary advisor with a commission hierarchy, removing the advisor from the policy was failing to update the Has Valid Hierarchy column on the Group Policy List. The column now updates to display a “No” value for such policies when the advisor is removed. (PMG-257439)

• The contact Group Policies tab was not displaying policies on which the contact was a group plan member. The tab now displays these policies. (PMG-293230)

• An issue with group products created using the Copy Group Product command was resolved. When users navigated to the Group Plan List content link of these products, the insurance type at the top of the page was displaying as (0). (PMG-294112)

• Users who tried to preview or send case status reports for group policies were encountering an error stating, “Please select a Pending Case option.” (PMG-294482)

• On the Group Plans content link of a group medical policy, users who accessed the Premium sub-content link and modified the Participating Members field on the AlphaNum4 row were unable to save their changes. This issue also affected the AlphaNum4 and AlphaNum7 rows in group dental policies. In addition, the labels of several AlphaNum fields on the Premium sub-content link were incorrect for group medical, group dental and group vision policies. These issues were resolved. (PMG-308735)

• Users who ran the Group Policy Plan Premium and Benefit Data PDF report for group medical policies were encountering an error stating that the file was damaged. This issue was resolved. (PMG-311293)

• When users tried to send case status reports to advisors by selecting Menu > Case Status from Group Policy List, the Case Status dialog box was displaying the Office and Case Manager fields. These fields were removed because they do not apply to group policy case status reports. (PMG-316108)

• Two issues with group policies were resolved:

- On the group policy Detail content link, removing the product, adding it back again and saving the record was producing an “insert/update failed” error.

- On the Group Plans content link of a copied group policy, users who tried to add a plan were being prompted to select a product.

(PMG-489259)

• After being added to a group plan, some group members were not visible on the group plan Members list in some instances. This issue was resolved. (PMG-553455)

• An issue with the Policy Advisor List on the group policy Detail content link was resolved. After opening an advisor record and clicking the Contract Information link, users who expected to see contracts that specified lines of business were finding that those contracts were missing from the list. This issue was resolved. (PMG-578656)

SmartWholesaler

Enhancements

• Advanced filters in producer and firm search: When performing a detailed producer or firm search using a filter, users now have access to the Advanced Filter option when creating a new filter for the search. (PMG-131317)

• SmartView for Advisors for wholesalers: The SmartView for Advisors feature is now available to SmartWholesaler customers. This feature enables administrators to set up special user accounts that allow producers and firms to retrieve up-to-date policy, case status and other information from SmartOffice. (PMG-336656)

Resolved Issues

• Users who had a SmartWholesaler license but who did not have the Advisors & Agencies user right were still seeing Producer and Firm options in the Search section and side menu. This issue was resolved. (PMG-545468)

SmartCommissions

Featured Enhancements

Mass Operations for Advanced Commission Splits

Customers can now mass edit advanced commission split information for multiple policies at the same time. Users can access the new commands while viewing the results of a policy, group policy or pending case search, or while viewing the Policies, Group Policies or Pending Cases tab of an advisor or contact record.

Tag two or more records, and then select Menu > Advanced Options and select one of these commands:

• Mass Assign Advanced Commission Split: This command assigns a commission split to all selected policies that do not already have a split assigned to them. When the Advanced Commission Payouts dialog box opens, select a split and click the OK button.

• Mass Modify Advanced Commission Split. Select his command to modify split definitions for the selected policies. The selected policies must currently have the same split assigned to them (to quickly identify policies containing the same split, you can add the Hierarchy Name column to the policy list layout.) SmartOffice prompts you to select the new split to assign to the selected records. The roles in the new split must match those in the original split. For example, if the original split definition includes the Primary Advisor, External Advisor and House roles, the new split must contain the same roles for mass modification to succeed. At the end of the process, SmartOffice displays a confirmation dialog box reporting the number of successfully and unsuccessfully modified policies.

• Mass Modify Advisors in Advanced Commission Split: This command allows the user to replace a particular advisor with another advisor in the commission splits of all selected records.

• Mass Delete Advanced Commission Split: This command quickly removes commission splits from all selected records.

As part of this enhancement, as issue was also resolved. When advanced commission splits were assigned to policies, commission types other than Base (e.g., Override, ERA, Fee, Bonus) were not being calculated. (PMG-124205, PMG-548774, PMG-564188)

Batch Information in Carrier Posting Lists

To quickly see information about the commission batch associated with a particular carrier posting, users can now add columns from the Commission Batch table to the Carrier Posting List and the Carrier Posting content link of carrier records. The table includes columns such as Batch Name, Date, Sent to Job Queue and Status. (PMG-620875)

Other Enhancements

General

• Expanded column choices for commission rate lists: Users with list layout customization rights now have access to more columns when they customize the list of commission rates associated with an advisor contract. This enhancement makes all columns in the Commission Rate table available, covering the full rate structure. This enhancement applies when users:

- Display the Commission Rates List by selecting Insurance > Commission Rates from the side menu.

- Open the Contract List and select Menu > Advanced Options > Show Commission Rate.

- Open the advisor Cont./Appt. content link and select Menu > Advanced Options > Related Commission Rates from the Contract List.

- Open the List, Detail, Product Settings or Underwriting Guidelines and Notes content link of a product record, and then select Menu > Advanced Options > Show Commission Rate.

- Open the carrier Contracts content link and select Menu > Advanced Options > Show Commission Rate.

(PMG-140486)

• Interested party columns in projected commission reports: Users now have access to columns from the Interested Party table when configuring Commission-family Dynamic Reports in the Projected Advisor Commission and Projected Agency Commission categories. With these columns, users can more easily configure reports to show split cases. (PMG-236850)

• Commission statement layout enhancement: For better readability, the layout of the Generic Statement #3 commission statement was changed to increase the width of the Payee Name field. (PMG-237526)

• Product type column in commission rates lists: On the Commission Rates List (Insurance > Commission Rates) and in Dynamic Reports from the All Commission Rates category, users with the appropriate rights can now add the Type column from the Product table. (PMG-238116)

• Rate-related columns in advisor contract reports: In the Commission family of Dynamic Reports, Advisor Contract-category reports can now include full commission rate information. Columns from the following tables are now available: Commission Banding, Commission Rate Detail Information, Excess Commission Rate Banding, Premium Band and Options. (PMG-268351)  

• Clarified mass commission projection statistics: The statistics for successful and unsuccessful commission projections that the Mass Projection utility displays are now reported differently for improved clarity under certain circumstances. The changes, which apply when the utility’s Recalculate option is cleared, are based on the number of commission projection years specified in Commissions Setup:

- When commission calculations exist for a policy/rider for the entire commission projection period, the Mass Projection utility counts that as an unsuccessful projection because no new commissions are calculated.

- When commission calculations exist for a policy/rider for none or part of the commission projection period, the utility counts that as a successful projection if it is able to generate the missing commissions.

- When commission calculations exist for a policy/rider for part of the commission projection period but the remainder cannot be calculated because of missing rates, the utility counts that as an unsuccessful projection.

(PMG-288730)

• Mass commission projection improvements: To help users perform manual commission projections more efficiently, the Mass Projection utility was enhanced to improve its performance. (PMG-301470)

• Product data in advisor contract reports: Commission-family Dynamic Reports in the Advisor Contracts category now include the Product tables, enabling users to pull product information into their advisor contract reports. (PMG-310789)

• Ability to copy rates from editable spreadsheet: When editing multiple rates at the same time using the Edit Commission Rates command, users can now copy existing rates using the new Menu > Copy Commission Rates command on the editable spreadsheet. This saves time when the user wants to create rate records that are similar to existing rate records. (PMG-331023)

• Customizable contract description field: On the New - Contract dialog box, the label for the Description field can now be customized by users who have the appropriate rights. (PMG-543699)

• Message to clarify changes to expected commissions: When a user with the Administrative Database Maintenance user right changes the status of an expected commission transaction, SmartOffice now displays a message informing the user that any associated advisor-level commission transactions will not be modified. (PMG-558399)

• Export enhancement for commissionable transactions: When commissionable policy transactions are exported to Excel from the Policy Transaction content link, the Num1 and Num2 fields are now formatted as currency. (PMG-666198)

• New merge codes for commission premium: Two merge codes were added to display commission premium information in correspondence:

- ActiveLifePoliciesYTD: This merge code displays a five-column table showing life policies that have an Active-stage date within the year-to-date period and that are visible to advisors. The columns displayed are Carrier, Product, Policy #, Inforce Date and Commission Premium.

- ActiveLifeCommAnlzdPremYTD: This merge code displays the total commission premium for all life policies that have an Active-stage date within the year-to-date period and that are visible to advisors. Policy details are not displayed.

(PMG-671675)

Batch Processing

• Additional batch capabilities for administrative database users: To prevent data corruption, the system no longer allows active batches with posted carrier postings to be deleted. However, users with the Administrative Database Maintenance user right can now change the status of a batch from Active to Posted and then unpost the batch to correct any problem data. (PMG-124007)

• Commission statement improvements: To better handle advisor splits for commissions, the Generic Commission Statement #2 PDF report was enhanced to include the names of the primary and additional writing advisors in the Writing Agent column. In addition, rounding issues with the statement’s subtotals and totals were resolved. (PMG-243747)

• Improved commission statement options: From Batch Processing, users who send generic commission statements to advisors are now prompted to select a disclaimer and are given the option to include a logo. (PMG-308027)

• Product custom fields in advisor commission list and statements: In batch processing records, users can now include columns from the Product Custom table in the layout of the Advisor Commission List. Because changes to this list affect the layout of e-mailed commission statements, this enhancement makes Product Custom columns available for use in those statements as well. (PMG-575488)

Speed Receipts

• Better handling of transaction-policy links: The linking of transactions to policies was improved in Speed Receipts. If the user encounters a Multiple Policies Found error during validation and then corrects the error, the transaction now remains linked to the policy, even if the user selects the Validate All Commission Transactions command a second time. (PMG-190169)

• Improved Launch Activity command for speed receipts: When using the Options > Launch Activity command from the Commission Data list of a speed receipt, users no longer have to save and close the activity before they can delete participants. (PMG-220184)

• Improved speed receipt transaction validation: During validation of a commission transaction entered in Speed Receipts, the system now checks the product or group product code to determine a match if multiple policies with the same policy number are found. (PMG-595549)

• Speed receipt layout improvement: In speed receipt records, the height of the Commission Data section was increased to display more data. (PMG-654660)

Resolved Issues

General

• An error affecting rider commission calculations was resolved. The system was checking the rider product commission banding effective date against the policy effective data instead of the rider effective date.

• During the commission rate change process, when the user opted to create a new rate and lock old pending cases to the old rate, the old cases were not being properly locked to the old rate. This issue was resolved. (PMG-130912)

• Two general commission issues were resolved:

- When Target was identified and all but the last payment for Target were processed, advisors were not being paid when commissions were recalculated.

- From the advisor commission hierarchy of a policy, the rates for a blanket contract were not visible.

(PMG-131198)

• An issue with commission calculations was resolved. The issue occurred when the user selected the Show Hierarchy command from the Policy Advisor List of a policy and manually inserted another advisor into the hierarchy. The manually inserted advisor’s assignment of commission was not being established. (PMG-144359)

• Users were encountering errors and issues with saving changes in the Edit Commission Rates dialog box when the Product Options and Effective Date columns were present. These errors were resolved. (PMG-147235)

• An issue that was causing Advisor Commission-category Dynamic Reports to run slowly was resolved. (PMG-161578)

• In the Commission Export Setup section of Commissions Setup, data in the Commission Account List was not visible. This issue was resolved. (PMG-168656)

• When the Block Adv. Contract Checks option was enabled in the Calculation Setup section of Commissions Setup, users were still being prompted to rebuild the hierarchy and recalculate commissions when they changed the product, status or premium on a policy or pending case. These prompts no longer appear. (PMG-170599)

• An issue with the generation of expected commission records for policy riders was resolved. When a rider had rates for multiple years and the rider effective date was two or more years after the policy date, the rider was projecting first-year commissions only. These riders now project commissions for all years. (PMG-174066)

• When users opened the Commission Rates List (Insurance > Commission Rates), tagged records and then ran the Commission Rate PDF report, the resulting report contained several issues that were resolved:

- The report was not being sorted properly. It is now sorted by carrier, then product, then contract.

- The report now contains a column displaying banding information if the banding is something other than the default.

- Locked and expired rates are now excluded.

- The Renewal Years column now comes before the Renewal Rate column for improved readability.

(PMG-182116)

• The system was improperly closing commission transactions that were created for a policy rider and that were dated before the date of the last reconciled base transaction. This issue was resolved. (PMG-200544)

• In the error log for the mass projection feature, the success and failure counts were reversed. The log was corrected. (PMG-185007)

• The mass projection feature was not including policies with a policy date that matched the contract date. These policies are now included in mass projections. (PMG-187957)

• The system was improperly closing commission transactions that were created for a policy rider and that were dated before the date of the last reconciled base transaction. This issue was resolved. (PMG-200544)

• Issues with the system’s handling of missing or expired advisor contracts were resolved:

- When users rebuilt a commission hierarchy containing an expired advisor contract, SmartOffice was displaying a blank hierarchy with no explanation. Now, SmartOffice logs an error stating that the advisor contract was not found.

- When users recalculated commissions with no advisor contract selected on a policy, SmartOffice was logging an error stating that the policy advisor record was not present. This error was corrected to state that the advisor contract was not found.

(PMG-200949)

• An issue that caused errors with policy rider commission calculations was resolved. The issue occurred when certain rates associated with the base policy were cumulative while others were not. (PMG-203815)

• Rider commissions were not being calculated or recalculated properly in the following situations:

- Policy commissions were already calculated and the user added a rider with an effective date and premium information from the policy Benefits content link.

- Policy commissions were already calculated and the user opened a rider record from the policy Benefits content link and modified the effective date or premium information.

- Rider commissions were calculated with the premium mode set to Annually and the mode was then changed to Monthly.

These calculations were corrected. (PMG-207007)

• When calculating commissions, the system was not calculating payments for advisors with a role of Advisor’s Assistant, Servicing Agency or Writing Agency. Payments for any advisors under those advisors in the commission hierarchy were also not being calculated. This issue was resolved. (PMG-217621)

• An issue that prevented users from changing the effective date of the house contract commission band was resolved. (PMG-220198)

• During policy creation, selecting the primary advisor using a partial-name search and clicking the Finish button was producing an error stating that the advisor’s hierarchy chain was broken. This issue was resolved. (PMG-229650)

• Two issues with adding advisor payments were resolved:

- The button to add a payment to the Advisor Payment List of the Commission Detail dialog box was missing.

- When the user selected the Show Advisor Commission List command from the Expected Commission List and then added an advisor payment, the record’s Payable Due Date field was not editable.

(PMG-231321)

• When the primary advisor on a policy had no contract selected, users who tried to rebuild the hierarchy for other advisors on the policy were encountering the error, “Break in primary advisor's hierarchy chain.” This issue was resolved. (PMG-231651)

• An issue that caused the advisor Smart Checks content link to display incorrect cheque amounts was resolved. (PMG-232240)

• Several issues with commission calculations and modifications were resolved:

- Trail commissions were not being calculated for advisors and supervisors when commission rates were a percentage of base commission.

- On the carrier posting Detail content link, when a user with the Administrative Database Maintenance user right modified a commission record’s Paid Commission field so that it differed from the Net Expected Amount field, any attempt to modify advisor commissions to reconcile was producing an error stating, “The current difference amount is greater than the maximum permissible write off amount.”

- Users were unable to edit the fields of commission records that had a status of Open (Speed Receipt Entry).

(PMG-234491)

• An issue that caused the system to link expired commission rates to new policies was resolved. (PMG-234776)

• When changing the status of a pending case from Issued to Delivered or Inforce, users who did not have a SmartCommissions license were being prompted to recalculate commissions. This issue was resolved. (PMG-236792)

• Users of the SmartCommissions for Advisors module were encountering a “failed to load object” error when they tried to view data for an advisor cheque posting. This error was resolved. (PMG-237700)

• Issues with Dynamic Reports in the All Commission Rates, Batch Processing, Speed Receipt Entry and Commission Upload categories were resolved. When users ran any of these reports and then customized the column layout of the results list, the layout changes were not being saved. In addition, the Back, Next and Finish buttons in the Dynamic Report Setup dialog box were not available. (PMG-241072)

• Two issues affecting users who have the Administrative Database Maintenance user right were resolved:

- While viewing the advisor payment list for a policy commission record, users who tried to customize the list layout were finding that the label for the Last Name, First Name column in the Linked Advisor table was incorrect.

- On the advisor Smart Checks content link, when users tried to delete a record linked to a commission batch, the system was displaying an incorrect message stating that one or more records could not be deleted.

(PMG-241106)

• For rider commissions, the rate percentage was being applied to the modal premium instead of the commissionable modal premium. The system now uses the commissionable modal premium for commission calculation. (PMG-245160)

• When users ran PDF reports from carrier records, the list of available reports included Advisor-category reports. These reports are not relevant to carrier records and were removed from the list. (PMG-245673)

• On the Group Policy List, the Has Commission Records column was displaying “No” even for policies that had expected commission records. The column was corrected. (PMG-247463)

• A component premium of zero was sometimes causing the expected percentage to be invalid. This issue was resolved. (PMG-248215)

• In speed receipt records, the Original Net Expected Amount field of a commission transaction was displaying an incorrect value when commission was calculated for multiple transactions. This issue was resolved. (PMG-251025)

• While viewing commission Dynamic Report results, users who tried to filter on the Role column (from the Commission Payable table) were finding that the Servicing Agency and Writing Agency options were displaying as numerical values. The proper text labels for those options were restored. (PMG-252303)

• When the status of a pending case was changed to Approved, Issued or Inforce, users were receiving duplicate messages regarding recalculating commissions. This issue was resolved. (PMG-257386)

• “Insert/update failed” errors that occurred in the following situations were resolved:

- In Carrier Posting, users with the Administrative Database Maintenance user right manually changed the status of a commission transaction from Reconciled to Open.

- In Advisor Check Posting, users with the SmartCommissions - Advisor user right changed the value of the Expected Amount field of a commission transaction or changed a transaction’s status from Reconciled to Open.

(PMG-258798)

• Advisor payment records with a blank Advisor on Contract field were not displaying in Dynamic Reports and the Advisor Payment List. These records now display as long as they have an advisor specified in the Payment Information section. (PMG-265406)

• An issue that occurred when users viewed the details of a record with a Posted status on the Advisor Transaction Posting List was resolved. When users opened the advisor commission list for the selected record and tried to view a commission record in the list, the system was displaying a “failed to load object” error. (PMG-267577)

• When multiple blanket contracts were linked to an advisor, the system was automatically assigning the first contract for new pending cases linked to that advisor. This issue was resolved so that the system now prompts the user to select the appropriate contract. (PMG-268118)

• When a rider rate’s effective date was earlier than the rider’s effective date but later than the policy date, the system was not calculating commissions for the rider. To resolve this issue, the rider rate’s effective date is now compared with the rider’s effective date and not the policy date. (PMG-281491)

• Commission statements containing French words were missing accent marks and some letters. This issue was resolved. (PMG-282995)

• In several Commission-category Dynamic Reports, columns that should display product names and plan names were blank. This issue was resolved. (PMG-285021)

• When manually adding an Adjustment-type commission transaction, users were being prompted to create an associated advisor statement. However, when the user clicked the OK button, entered values in the Advisor Payment Detail dialog box and then clicked the OK button, the system was not prompting the user to create an advisor statement again as expected. This issue was resolved. (PMG-285027)

• After running an Advisor/Agency-family Dynamic Report  in the By Address category, users who clicked an advisor’s name in the report results were encountering a “Your action cannot be completed” error. The error was also occurring in Commission-family reports in the Batch Processing category when users clicked a link in the Expected Due Date column for a commission record that was not linked to a commission batch. (PMG-286611)

• When users tried to upload files from the following dialog boxes, no entries were being created:

- Commission Statement Header Information Notes

- Commission Batch Processing Notes

- Carrier Posting Notes

- Speed Receipt Notes

- Carrier Posting Notes

- Expected Commission Notes

- Advisor Payments Notes

The appropriate entries are now created. (PMG-286624)

• SmartCommissions for Advisors users lost access to the Commission Calculator and List Commission Records commands. This issue was resolved. (PMG-292961)

• The system was improperly closing bonus, override, Level 1 and other types of commission transactions that were dated before the date of the last reconciled base transaction. This issue was resolved. (PMG-293877)

• When a policy record had future premium payments identified, rider commissions were being calculated using that information instead of the rider data. This issue was resolved. (PMG-294024)

• An issue that caused excess commissions to be calculated for the wrong month was resolved. The issue occurred when commissions were added manually before calculations occurred. (PMG-294457)

• Two issues affecting users who had the CTM Processing user right were resolved. When these users manually added an expected commission record, the Advisor and Expected Payable Amount fields were not editable, and the Payable Due Date was not displaying properly. (PMG-296529)

• Two issues related to commission reports and statements were resolved:

- When an advisor record has no designated address for receiving commission statements, the Advisor Commission Report now displays the advisor’s preferred business address.

- The Generic Statement #2 statement format was displaying the first address added to the advisor’s record instead of displaying the address designated for commission statements. The statement now displays addresses using the same rules as the Advisor Commission Report.

(PMG-298000)

• An issue was occurring when the supervisor and advisor on a carrier-specific advisor contract were the same. The issue occurred when two or more Supervisor-type blanket contracts also existed for the advisor. When the carrier-specific advisor contract was selected on a policy, users were seeing an error stating, “Invalid Hierarchy chain. Subordinate cannot be supervisor.” Now, users are prompted to select supervisor contracts instead. (PMG-298748)

• An issue with the Advisor Reassignment feature was resolved. When records were reassigned and the old advisor was deleted, any records of payable commissions were being deleted as well, even when the commissions were paid. This issue was resolved. (PMG-300472)

• When the system rounded off a negative receivable amount whose last digit was 5, the receivable total and cheque amount were not matching. This issue was resolved. (PMG-303790)

• Two issues with the Contract Change utility were resolved:

• - When the utility’s Recalculate Commission option was enabled and the selected contract was linked to a policy with a blank Policy Date field, the utility was improperly calculating commissions from the contract’s effective date instead of the current date.

- The utility was experiencing performance issues in specific situations.

(PMG-305877)

• Two issues affecting rider commission rates were resolved:

- When a rider rate’s effective date was after the policy date and before the rider’s effective date, SmartOffice was not building the rider commission hierarchy after the rider record was created. In addition, when the rider hierarchy was rebuilt, the rider rate was not being selected.

- When a rider’s effective date was after the rider rate’s effective date—and when the rider rate’s effective date was after the policy date—rider rates were not being selected in the rider commission hierarchy after mass projection.

(PMG-307441)

• When a Mass Projection job was sent to the Job Queue for processing, the job detail page was displaying errors and improperly formatted dates. These issues, which occurred when certain date formats were selected in a user’s preferences, were resolved. (PMG-310236)

• The Mass Projection utility was building a commission hierarchy and projecting commissions even when the contract on a selected policy was expired. This issue was resolved. (PMG-314897)

• An issue affecting calculations for target premium when both the premium mode and pay method were Single Pay was resolved. When target was met and the premium was split between target and excess, SmartOffice was calculating the base commission payable to the advisor by applying the percentage to excess premium instead of the calculated base premium. (PMG-317961)

• Performance issues involving e-mail commission statements and hierarchy rebuilding were resolved. (PMG-329778)

• When the Modal Flat Extra value on a pending case was greater than 999, users who edited future premium payments on the case and then tried to save those changes were encountering an “insert/update failed” error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-337236)

• In some cases, when calculating the advisor payment on a commission transaction containing base and excess components, the system was using the full premium instead of using only the base portion. This issue was resolved. (PMG-340277)

• The system paid-to date was incorrect when bonus transactions were manually added and later reconciled. The issue was occurring because the system paid-to date was updating for all transaction types and not just for Base- and Excess-type transactions. To resolve this issue, the following changes were made to the Commission Detail dialog box:

- When adding a commission transaction, users will now find a Sys Paid-to date field in the Policy Related Information section.

- In the Commission Payment Information section, an editable Paid to/Next Due date field was added. After the user enters a date in the Commission Due field, the system calculates the Paid to/Next Due date and refreshes the screen to display that date. The user can then modify the date as needed.

(PMG-341612)

• In advisor payment detail records for advisor assistants, the Role field under Optional Fields for Reporting was missing the Advisor’s Assistant option. This was causing the role for such records to display as Manager in the Advisor Payment List. This issue was resolved. (PMG-364850)

• SmartOffice was calculating rolling target commissions incorrectly when a Level 1 rate was involved. This issue was resolved. (PMG-349207)

• Users who tried to open PDF commission statements were encountering a message stating that the files were damaged. This issue affected the Generic Statement #2 and Generic Statement #3 formats and occurred when an advisor’s address contained an ampersand (&). These statements now open without error. (PMG-349249)

• When users opened an excess commission record, modified the premium values and then tried to recalculate the commission, the transaction was being deleted instead. This issue was resolved. (PMG-420753)

• When attempting to e-mail commission statements to multiple advisors from a posted commission batch, users were finding that only one of the selected advisors was receiving a statement. This issue was resolved. (PMG-471967)

• Issues with improper headings and blank pages in PDF commission reports were resolved. (PMG-473122, PMG-592074)

• On the advisor Commission content link, users who tried to generate an advisor commission report from the Advisor Payment List using the Print All option were seeing no records on the report. This issue occurred when Status and Date Range drop-down lists were set to All. (PMG-529354)

• An issue with projecting commissions using a start date that was different from the policy date was resolved. When the end date was four years after the start date and the policy contained a future premium payment, transactions were being generated for only three years. (PMG-529635)

• On the advisor Commission content link, when users exported the Advisor Payment List to Excel, the columns in the exported document were not matching the columns in SmartOffice. This issue was resolved. (PMG-530838)

• When editing multiple commission rates in a spreadsheet using the Edit Commission Rates command, users who tried to copy commission rates containing multiple commission bands were encountering a “failed to load object” error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-537538)

• Several issues with managing commission transactions in policy records were resolved for users who had the SmartCommissions - Advisor license:

• - Entering an amount in a transaction’s Paid Commission field that was equal to the Expected Amount was not changing the transaction’s status to Reconciled.

- In a balance-due transaction, entering an amount in the Paid Commission field that was not equal to the Expected Amount—and then attempting to create a new balance-due transaction for the difference—was producing an “insert/update failed” error.

- In Advisor Check Posting, a transaction containing modal premium and percentage values could not be reconciled when it contained the same value for both the paid and expected amounts as well as an Actual Premium Paid value of zero.

(PMG-541622)

• Commissions were being calculated for policy riders after the rider expiration date. This issue was resolved. (PMG-558662)

• The Mass Projection utility was not checking whether the carrier and product on a commission rate for a blanket contract matched the carrier and product on the policy. This issue was resolved. (PMG-560323)

• Several issues with deleting commission rates were resolved:

- Users who did not have the CTM Administrator license were encountering an error when they deleted the policies linked to a commission rate and then tried to modify the rate.

- Users who modified a rider rate were not being presented with the option to apply the changes to all linked policies. In addition, users who did not have the CTM Administrator license were not being presented with a message informing them that the rate cannot be modified.

- Users with the CTM Supervisor View license were encountering issues when trying to specify search criteria or column filters for commission rates and contracts.

(PMG-559696)

• When a policy/case was in an Active or Issued stage, users who tried to calculate commissions from the case record’s Projected Commission List were encountering an error stating that commission records already existed for the specified date range. The error occurred when expected commission records existed for the same dates. This issue was resolved. (PMG-560920)

• Users who entered future premium payments for a policy had to project commissions for at least two years in order for commission calculations to work properly. This issue was resolved. (PMG-560922)

• When users ran the Mass Projection utility with the Refresh Commission Hierarchy option selected, the system was refreshing hierarchies even on pending cases in which the advisor had the Hierarchy Locked option selected. This issue was resolved. (PMG-561249)

• An issue affecting users with the SmartCommissions - Advisor license was resolved. When these users tried to calculate commission on a policy in the Underwriting stage using the Commission Calculator, they were encountering a “processing canceled” error. (PMG-562021)

• In GR Smart Check PDFs, the GR Percentage in the summary was displaying 0.000% instead of the actual value for Miscellaneous-type adjustments. This issue was resolved. (PMG-562028)

• Users were unable to delete a policy permanently from the Deleted Records area of the system when the policy contained commission transactions calculated from the Commissionable Premium Payment Transaction List. This issue was resolved. (PMG-565077)

• Two issues that occurred when users modified premiums on rider commissions were resolved:

- SmartOffice was not recalculating the commission on the modified premium.

- When a rider’s effective date was after the policy date, duplicate rider commission records were being created in some instances.

(PMG-569667)

• Issues with Summary and Detail section headings in gross revenue commission statements were resolved. (PMG-570768)

• When a product's commission rate had a Paid Mode of As Paid with Months Advance and the Months Advance field was set to 2 (17%), one record for the first-month transaction (2 months advance) was being skipped during commission processing. (PMG-573548)

Batch Processing

• During batch processing, batches that had no linked carrier postings were producing an error when the user tried to open the Advisor Commission List. (PMG-130923)

• An issue involving the Commission Export Setup section of Commissions Setup was resolved. When the Default E-mail Body field contained apostrophe (') or carat (^) characters, the system was displaying those characters as upside-down question marks and copyright symbols in e-mailed advisor commission statements. (PMG-214332)

• An issue with adding an adjustment commission with a due date other than the current date was resolved. When the user generated the advisor statement, the advisor payment due date was not in sync with the expected due date of the expected commission transaction. (PMG-230891)

• On the batch Detail content link, when users viewed the details of an advisor cheque and then tried to export the Advisor Payment List to Excel, the columns in the exported file were not matching those displayed on the screen. The exported file now contains the correct columns. (PMG-231271)

• An issue that was causing Advisor Check List and Smart Check amounts to not match the amounts displayed in advisor statements was resolved. (PMG-248809)

• Several issues with commission transactions in commission batches were resolved:

- Under certain circumstances, reopening a processed commission batch was causing commission transactions in a linked carrier posting to change improperly from a Reconciled status to a Reconciled - Advisor Transaction On Hold status.

- Under certain circumstances, when the user changed a carrier posting’s status from Reconciled - Advisor Transaction On Hold to Open and then unreconciled and re-reconciled transactions, the posting’s status was incorrectly changing to Reconciled instead of Reconciled - Advisor Transaction On Hold.

- Issues that prevented cleared transactions from being released for inclusion in a commission batch were resolved.

(PMG-250607)

• When a batch was successfully reopened or unposted using the Job Queue, the Job Queue was erroneously reporting that the job was “done unsuccessfully.” These messages were corrected. (PMG-250622)

• When trying to unlink a carrier posting from the batch Detail content link, users were encountering an error stating, “One or more record(s) cannot be deleted." The error, which affected users who had read-only permissions for carrier records, was resolved. (PMG-262221)

• Several issues with commission batches involving investment commissions were resolved:

- When viewing the details of an advisor transaction posting, users were finding that the value in the Posting Amount field differed from the value in the Receivable column of the Advisor Transaction List.

- On the advisor Smart Checks content link, when users opened the PDF statement for an advisor cheque on the Advisor Commission Check List, the Grand Total amount in the statement’s Summary section did not match the cheque amount on the Advisor Commission Check List.

- Generic PDF statements run from the batch Detail content link contained duplicate investment commission entries.

(PMG-285395)

•  While viewing the details of a commission batch, users who opened the Advisor Commission Check List and selected Menu > Show PDF Commission Report were receiving a "file damaged" error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-473992)

• A performance issue that increased the processing time for commission batches was resolved. (PMG-505068)

• When trying to run a Generic Statement PDF report for a posted commission batch, users were encountering an error stating, “The file is damaged and could not be repaired.” This issue was resolved. (PMG-542442)

• An issue that prevented Smart Checks from generating for advisor transaction postings after batch processing was resolved. (PMG-574479)

• Carrier Posting-category Dynamic Reports were displaying duplicate entries when multiple payable commissions for an advisor existed under the same cheque in a batch. This issue was resolved. (PMG-576037)

Carrier Posting

• In Carrier Posting, using the Modify Advisor Commissions command on a manually added policy was updating the Expected Commission and Net Expected Amount values to zero. This issue was resolved.

• Open payments on deleted records were displaying in Carrier Posting and in the Advisor Payment List. This issue was resolved. (PMG-155336)

• When users auto-reconciled a carrier posting, the status of the carrier posting was correctly changing to Reconciled, but the adjustment entry representing the difference between the cheque and reconciled amounts was not appearing in the Expected Commission List. This issue was resolved. (PMG-222494)

• Users with administrative database maintenance rights were encountering unexpected behavior when they opened a commission transaction on the carrier posting Detail content link and entered an amount in the Paid Commission field:

- When the amount entered was equal to the net expected amount, the transaction was remaining in an Open status instead of being reconciled.

- When the amount entered was not equal to the net expected amount and the user opted to create a balance due, modify advisor commissions or create a suspense transaction, the transaction was remaining in an Open status instead of being reconciled.

- When the amount entered was not equal to the net expected amount and the user opted to write off the difference within the allowed system tolerance, the system was incorrectly warning that the difference was greater than the maximum permissible write-off amount.

(PMG-237390)

• Several issues were preventing transactions in Carrier Posting from being released properly through Batch Processing so that advisor payments could be processed. These issues were resolved. (PMG-238263, PMG-240239)

• On the Search Carrier Postings dialog box, when the user specified a carrier and clicked the New button, the carrier’s name was not being filled in automatically on the new carrier posting record. This issue was resolved. (PMG-242802)

• When performing a carrier posting search, users who selected the All Open option from the Status drop-down list were finding that carrier postings with a status of Waived (Speed Receipt Entry) were not appearing in the search results. This issue was resolved. (PMG-282192)

• Users were unable to manually change the status of a carrier posting from Reconciled (Speed Receipt Entry) to Open (Speed Receipt Entry) after reconciling a transaction using the Create Balance Due or Modify Advisor Commission option. This issue was resolved. (PMG-286646)

• Advisor license, contract and appointment checks were not occurring when users created carrier postings under certain circumstances. This issue was resolved. (PMG-304628)

• Users who tagged all of the commission transactions in a carrier posting and then selected the Modify Advisor Commissions, Create a Balance Due or Move to Suspense reconciliation command were seeing duplicate closed transactions in some situations. In addition, reconciled transactions were displaying incorrect receivable values. Users were also encountering page refresh issues when using reconciliation commands. These issues were resolved. (PMG-346504)

• In Carrier Posting, when a user edited a balance-due transaction and saved it with a blank Paid Commission field, the transaction was being linked to the carrier posting. This should not occur when the Paid Commission field contains no value. The issue was resolved. (PMG-349217)

• Carrier postings that did not contain reconciled expected commission transactions were not appearing in Carrier Posting-category Dynamic Reports. In addition, carrier postings containing reconciled transactions for multiple policies were appearing multiple times in reports. These issues were resolved. (PMG-557131)

• When the difference between expected and received commission amounts was written off during the reconciliation process, unreconciling the transaction and then reconciling it again was causing an incorrect amount to appear in the transaction’s Write Off Amount field. This issue was resolved. (PMG-559372)

Speed Receipts

• To resolve issues with calculating group policy commissions, users can now select the \# of Members column when importing .csv files into Speed Receipts. When that data is imported, the system now uses that value instead of the value found in the group policy record when calculating commission or current value. (PMG-147350)

• Some users were encountering a "failed to load object" error when they tried to create a transaction through the Quick Match/Reset feature in Speed Receipts. This error was resolved. (PMG-159528)

• An issue that occurred when the Product Name column was added to the Commission Data list of a speed receipt record was resolved. When users clicked a product name in the column, the product information that displayed was showing incorrect policy fee information. (PMG-225305)

• When two offsetting transactions in Speed Receipts were combined into a single transaction for transfer to Carrier Posting such that the paid commission was zero, users were unable to reconcile, create a balance due or modify advisor commissions. This issue was resolved. (PMG-234438)

• Several issues that prevented the proper handling of carrier postings with a status of Waived (Speed Receipt Entry) were resolved. (PMG-238911)

• Calculating commissions from the Speed Receipts area of the system was producing an “insufficient calculation data” error and was resulting in a duplicate commission hierarchy. This issue was resolved. (PMG-350737)

• In the Commission Detail list of a speed receipt record, users were encountering an issue when they reset the status of a validated transaction using the Reset button in the Quick Match/Reset SRE column. When the transaction’s status changed to Projection Found but out of Date Range, validating the transaction was leaving the status unchanged even when a matching expected transaction existed. This issue was resolved. (PMG-543088)

SmartInvestments

Featured Enhancements

Quick Access to Records Linked to Asset Allocation Models

Users can now quickly see which SmartOffice records are linked to a particular asset allocation model. Opening a model record now reveals four tabs—Contact, Household, Investment Accounts and Account Groups—that users can click to review linked records.  (PMG-159047)

Performance Calculation Improvements

Several enhancements were made to the performance calculation features of the system:

• Renamed side menu option: The side menu option Investments > Investment Performance Validation was renamed TWRR Performance Calculation Utility to reflect its purpose more accurately.

• Ability to calculate performance for specific contacts from side menu: When running performance calculations from the side menu, users are now presented with the option to run calculations for the entire office or for specific contacts, households, investment accounts or account groups. Selecting one of the latter options opens an appropriate search dialog box. The user then proceeds with the regular performance calculation workflow.  (PMG-159046)

Account Group Improvements

Several enhancements were made to improve the usability of the Account Groups feature:

• Enhanced account group search and creation options:  The system now makes it more convenient to search for and create account groups using these new methods:

• Users can now search for account groups directly from the SmartOffice side menu by selecting Investments > Account Groups.

• The account groups search dialog box now features additional fields for narrowing down searches by contact, purpose and/or filter. In addition, a New button enables users to create account groups.

•  Easier account group management: Several changes were made to help users add and remove accounts from account groups more easily:

• Users can now add accounts to account groups directly from the contact Account Groups tab. The new Menu > Add Account to Account Group command is available on the List and Group Detail content links.

• On the contact Account Groups tab, users can now remove accounts by navigating to the Group Accounts content link, tagging one or more accounts, and then selecting Menu > Unlink from Account Group.

• On the investment Account Detail content link, the Custom Account Group section was renamed Account Groups. In addition, the Options > Un-Link command in that section was renamed Options > Unlink from Account Group for improved clarity and consistency.

• Primary account selection: On the account group Detail content link, the Primary Account field is now editable. By default, the first account added to an account group is the primary account. Users can now click the Primary Account hyperlink to designate a different account as the primary account. This can be useful for including contact information on account group PDF reports (see next item).

• Account group reporting enhancements: Options for generating PDF reports for account groups were improved as follows:

• When a PDF report is run for an account group, the report options now include an Include Address and Phone # option. Selecting this option prints the contact information of the primary account’s primary contact on the report.

•  When creating PDF report packages, users now have access to a new Account Group package type.

• When Investment-category PDF reports that are run at the account group level contain no data for the specified date range, the report how displays a message to that effect. Previously, the reports were displaying column headings with no data.

• Dynamic Reports for account groups: SmartOffice’s Dynamic Report feature now supports account groups. An Account Groups report category was added to the Investment report family, and report list layouts and filters now have access to columns from the Account Groups table. (PMG-532557)

• Ability to view position details from account groups: While viewing the Group Positions content link of an account group, clicking an investment position in the list now displays sub-content links for working with the position, including Position Detail, Position History and Position Performance. (PMG-386852)

• New columns for account group and other lists: Columns related to account groups and performance calculations were added to the list layout options for several SmartOffice lists:

• On the Global Account Group List (Investments > Account Groups), users now have access to columns from the Performance Parameters and Asset Allocation Risk Level tables.

• The Exclude from Performance checkbox last modified column is now available for use in the Contact List, Household List, contact Investment Accounts and Account Groups tabs, Global Investment Account List and Global Account Group List.

• Account group validation: Investment validation is now available at the account group level, allowing users to quickly update investment information for the group as well as for each account and position belonging to that group. To use this feature, tag one or more groups on the Account Groups List and select Menu > Validate Tagged Account Groups, or open an account group record and select Menu > Validate Current Account Group from the Detail, Group Positions or Group Performance content link. When validation is run at the account group level, all linked accounts are validated, and the current values, net values and loan balances of those accounts are totaled to arrive at the values for the account group.

• Letters/Documents content link for account groups: A Letters/Documents content link was added to account group records, enabling users to post correspondence and files related to an account group. As part of this enhancement, PDF report packages that are linked to an account group report set are now automatically posted to this content link instead of the associated contact's Letters/Documents content link.

(PMG-166796, PMG-272186, PMG-531650, PMG-531982, PMG-561326, PMG-570899)

Page Layout Control for Accounts and Positions

SmartOffice’s Page Layout Customization feature has been expanded to apply to investment account and position records, giving users the ability to tailor the information displayed to their exact needs.

While viewing the Account Detail or Position Detail content link, users who have page layout customization rights can select Menu > Page Layouts to open the page layout designer, where they can specify the fields and sections they want. (PMG-218719)

Cost Column Changes in Investment Reports

Changes were made to several Investment-and Holding Statement-category PDF reports to provide users with the option to exclude cost information. To do so, select the Do Not Show option from the Cost Options drop-down list in the report options. This option is available for the following reports:

• Investment Summary with Purchase Date w/o Gain/Loss %

• Investment Summary with Liquidated Positions

• Position Summary w/out Loan Info

• Position Summary

• Investment Summary with Interest Rate

• Investment Summary with Maturity Date

• Investment Position Summary

• Holding Statement - By Primary Contact

• Holding Statement by Primary Contact with Liabilities

• Holding Statement - By Owner

 (PMG-545724, PMG-546669)

On-Access Validation Improvements

On-access investment validation was further improved in this release so that, during normal business hours, the system now validates records when users access them regardless of the last validation date and time, as long as the records have modified investment data.

As part of this enhancement, SmartOffice now features a validation restriction time window from 8:00 PM to 9:00 AM Eastern Time. This time window works as follows:

• When a record with modified investment data is accessed outside the restriction time window, SmartOffice now validates the record immediately, regardless of when it was last validated.

• When a record with modified investment data is accessed within the restriction time window, SmartOffice validates the record only if it was last validated more than an hour before (this validation period may be different for customers with customized server configurations).

Enterprise customers can customize the restriction time window and the logging of updated records in the server config.xml file. The new element under the tag accepts a time range expressed in GMT 24-hour format. For example, a restriction window from 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM EDT would be configured as midnight to 12:00 PM GMT:

00:00-12:00

In addition, the element allows enterprise customers to specify whether the number of updated records during validation is logged:

true

(PMG-559431)

Personal Holdings Workflow Enhancement

Users can now create personal holdings directly from the Global Investment Position List. This enhancement changes the workflow for creating positions from that list. Now, the user is prompted to select a security type first. If the user selects a personal-holding security type (i.e., Bank Account, Notes Receivable, Personal Property or Real Estate), the system prompts the user to select the appropriate contact or business. (PMG-628675)

Other Enhancements

General

• Renamed Investments menu options: In the SmartOffice side menu, several options under the Investments menu were renamed to be more concise:

- Investment Accounts is now Accounts.

- Investment Positions is now Positions.

- Investment Securities is now Securities.

(PMG-166796)

• Improved access to commands: Several existing commands were added to more areas of the SmartInvestments module to make them more convenient to access.

- On the contact Performance content link, the Validate Current Contact command was added under Menu > Advanced Options.

- On the investment security Detail content link, the Merge Duplicate Securities and Change Security Type commands were added under Menu > Advanced Options.

(PMG-217936)

• Additional list export capabilities: The Export List command was added to the following areas of the system, enabling users with the appropriate rights to export data to Excel and other file formats:

- Performance content link (contacts and households)

- Account Performance content link (investment accounts)

- Position Performance content link (investment positions)

- Group Performance content link (account groups)

- PDF Report List

- Account Groups List

- Account Groups tab (contacts)

(PMG-316482)

• Automatic SmartPad posting for more investment-related actions: SmartOffice now posts an entry to the SmartPad when the following commands are used:

- Reassign Primary Contact (for investment accounts)

- Relink Position to Another Account

The entry displays information about the change, the time and date the change occurred and the user who made the change.

For this to work, the Changes to Investment Position option must be selected on the SmartPad/New Contact/E-mail Posting in Office Settings. (PMG-538589)

Asset Allocation

• Asset allocation enhancements: The display and management of asset allocation information in SmartInvestments has been improved as follows:

- In lists and reports that are sorted by asset class, the asset classes are now listed alphabetically.

- The Search Asset Allocation Models dialog box now includes a New button that users can click to quickly create a new allocation model. This change applies to the dialog box users access from the side menu (Investments > Asset Allocation Models) as well as the dialog box that opens when users go to the Asset Allocation content link of a contact, household, investment account or account group and click the Asset Allocation Model link.

- While searching for an asset allocation model from the Asset Allocation content link of a contact, household, investment account or account group, users can now select Menu > New ‘Asset Allocation Models’ record to create a model.

(PMG-144931)

Investment Accounts

• Ability to restore deleted investment accounts: The Deleted Records area of the system was enhanced to allow users to restore deleted investment accounts. When the user selects Utilities > Deleted Records, the search dialog box that opens now contains an Investment Account option. Selecting that option lets the user search deleted investment accounts by primary contact. When a contact is in Deleted Records, any investment accounts linked to that contact are hidden. Restoring the contact from Deleted Records makes the linked accounts visible again. However, any previous links to account groups are lost, and the accounts must be re-added to those account groups. In addition, a user cannot restore a deleted investment account linked to a deleted contact unless that contact is restored first. (PMG-152965, PMG-311956, PMG-650925)

• Notes columns for account and position lists: Users can now view the latest notes for accounts and positions directly in list views. On the Investment Account List, users with the appropriate rights can add the Latest Account Notes column. On the Investment Positions List, users can add the Latest Position Notes column. (PMG-159048)

• New account merge codes: When creating correspondence, users now have access to two new merge codes that enable them to easily insert a list of investment accounts linked to a contact.

- ActiveAccounts: This merge code inserts a table displaying accounts that have an Active or Open status.

- AllAccounts: This merge code inserts a table displaying all of the contact’s accounts, regardless of status.

For both merge codes, the table displays the account name, account number and total value. (PMG-159558)

• Option to close positions for closed accounts: When a user changes the status of an investment account to Inactive/Closed, SmartOffice now asks the user whether any active positions linked to the account should be liquidated. (PMG-197221)

• Role filtering on advisor investment account list: A Role drop-down list was added to the top of the advisor Investment Accounts tab to enable users to filter the account list according to the advisor’s role. In addition, an issue was resolved in which an account would appear in the list multiple times in the advisor had multiple roles on the account. (PMG-218699)

• Initial performance date change for account groups: When determining the initial performance date of an account group for use in performance calculations, the system now uses the earliest initial performance date of all accounts linked to the group. Previously, the initial performance date was the same as the date the account group was created. As part of this change, the initial performance date for an account group is no longer editable by the user. (PMG-254875)

• Additional reports for account groups: Users can now run Account Master-category PDF reports for account groups. (PMG-267672)

• Account group list layout improvements: To provide more information to users directly on the Account Groups List, the following columns were added:

- Primary Account: This column shows the investment account designated as the group’s primary account.

- Primary Contact: This column displays the primary contact linked to the group’s primary account.

- All Linked Accounts: This column displays the names of all investment accounts linked to the account group.

(PMG-360739)

• Margin privileges account option: On the investment Account Detail content link, a Margin Privileges option was added to the Options section. As part of this change, a Margin Privileges column is also available for use in the Global Investment Account List, the contact Investment Accounts tab and other investment account lists in the system. (PMG-541311)

• Mass modification improvements for investment accounts: On investment account lists, users can now use the Mass Modify feature to change the Custodian field and the Roll Up Liabilities option for multiple accounts simultaneously. (PMG-550283)

• Improved warning regarding existing account numbers: The warning message that appears when a user tries to create an investment account using an existing account number was improved as follows:

- If the existing account is not visible to the user, the message mentions this and lists the possible reasons (e.g., the record is private, linked to a private or deleted contact, etc.).

- If the existing account is visible to the user, the message contains a link the user can click to open the account record.

(PMG-557290)

• Custodian drop-down list: The Custodian field on the investment Account Detail content link was changed from a text box to a drop-down list. This change helps to ensure more consistent entry of custodian information. (PMG-564313)

• Ability to mass modify Exclude from Performance option: To update the Exclude from Performance option for multiple investment accounts, positions or securities at once, users can select the command Menu > Advanced Options > Update Exclude from Performance. (PMG-626748)

• New column displaying interested-party percentages: On the Global Investment Account List, users with the appropriate rights can now add a column that displays all interested parties along with their interest percentages. The new column, All Interested Parties with Percent, belongs to the Investment Accounts table and is also available in Account - Interested Party-category Dynamic Reports. The existing All Interested Parties column remains available for users who want to display interested parties without percentages. (PMG-640512)

Investment Positions

• Easier access to buy, sell and liquidate commands: The Menu commands Buy, Sell and Liquidate Current Position are now more widely available in the system, providing users with easier access to those features. In particular, the commands were added to the position lists and position detail pages that users can access from contact and household records. The commands are also now available on the Global Investment Position List, the Investment Security Positions tab on the Investment Securities List and the variable annuity subaccount List content link. (PMG-135517)

• Explanatory notes for N/A values in performance summary: The TWRR Investment Performance Summary PDF report now displays footnotes to explain certain “N/A” values:

- When a position’s purchase date is after the report’s From date, the N/A value in the Beginning Value column refers to a footnote that states, “Position purchased after From date of report.”

- When a position’s liquidation date is before the report’s Through date, the N/A value in the Ending Value column refers to a footnote that states, “Position liquidated before Through date of report.”

- When a position is purchased and liquidated between the report’s From and Through dates, the N/A values in the Beginning Value and Ending Value columns refer to both footnotes.

(PMG-181437)

• Duplicate position merge for variable annuity subaccounts: The command Menu > Advanced Options > Merge Duplicate Positions was added to the subaccount lists of investment position and investment security records. (PMG-223641)

• Option to display results of interrupted reconciliation reports: When the user selects Investments > Reconciliation from the side menu, SmartOffice now presents a choice between running a new reconciliation report or displaying the remaining results of the previously run report. The latter option is useful when the previous report was interrupted for any reason and did not display full results. Selecting the option to run a new report opens the familiar reconciliation report options dialog box. (PMG-293411)

• Reconciliation access change: To access the investment reconciliation feature, a user must now have both the Show Investment Transactions and Show Investment Position History user rights. (PMG-559389)

• Cash and Equivalent-type position improvements: Two enhancements to Cash and Equivalent-type positions were added:

- When the Raymond James data feed creates a Cash and Equivalent-type position in SmartOffice, the feed now inserts the position’s maturity date based on the linked security’s maturity date. Previously, the feed was not inserting this date automatically, and the new position remained without a maturity date until investment validation was run.

- When a user updates the maturity date and/or the share price/date of a Cash and Equivalent-type security, a confirmation message notifies the user that all linked positions will be automatically updated. If the user proceeds with the change, linked positions are updated and automatically validated.

(PMG-573096)

• New columns for position lists and reports: Columns from the following security-related tables are now available for inclusion in all investment position lists and Position-category Dynamic Reports:

- Security - Bond

- Security - Cash

- Security - Miscellaneous

- Security - Mutual Fund

- Security - Stock

- Security - UIT

- Security - VA

 (PMG-573455)

• New cash value column: A Total Account Cash Value column was added to the Investment Accounts table. The new column displays the sum of the dollar values of all Cash and Equivalent positions in an account. The column is available for use in investment account and position lists as well as Dynamic Reports that include the Investment Accounts table. (PMG-590135)

• Ability to relink multiple positions: Users can now relink multiple investment positions to an account in one step. From any list of positions that are linked to accounts, tag multiple positions, and then select Menu > Advanced Options > Relink Position to Another Account. (PMG-617065)

• Maturity Date field for bond positions and VA subaccount positions: A read-only Maturity Date field was added to the Position Detail content link of bond positions and variable annuity subaccounts. For bond positions, the field reflects the maturity date on the linked security. For variable annuity subaccounts, the field reflects the maturity date of the variable annuity position. In the case of variable annuities, this enhancement also resolves an issue that was preventing variable annuity maturity dates from displaying in PDF reports when the Variable Annuity - Subaccounts report option was selected. (PMG-630449)

• New position detail fields: On the Position Detail content link, the Purchase Information section now contains a Status field and a Liquidated Date field. (PMG-630474)

Investment Reports

• Reporting improvements for variable annuities: Several enhancements related to variable annuities and investment reports were made:

- Two fields, Sector and Asset Class, were added to variable annuity security records. With these fields, investment reports that are sorted by asset class and that have the VA Summary option selected now sort variable annuities by the asset class specified in the security record.

- When the user selects the VA Summary option when running an Investment-category PDF report, the value displayed in the report’s Cost and Share columns is now the sum of the values for the subaccounts, regardless of whether the As of Date field is blank. For reports that include only active positions, the Cost sum includes only active subaccounts. For reports that include both active and liquidated positions, the Cost sum includes both active and liquidated subaccounts.

(PMG-141552)

• Streamlined report data range choices: A number of date ranges were removed from the Date Options drop-down list in the report options of several investment PDF reports. This change was made to remove infrequently-used date options and make more commonly used options easier to find. (PMG-145023)

• Additional options for balance sheet report: The report options for the Balance Sheet - Bank Format PDF report now allow the addition of an Account Type column or a How Held column. (PMG-181418)

• Maturity date added to position summary report: The Position Summary w/out Loan Info PDF report was modified to include a Maturity Date column. (PMG-181858)

• Policy tax type designations in reports: When annuity policies are included in an investment report, the value of each policy’s Tax Type field is now displayed in the report’s Account Type column. This enhancement applies to the following reports:

- Balance Sheet – Investment Format

- Balance Sheet – Investment Format Summary

- Balance Sheet – Bank Format (when the report includes the Account Type column)

- Any report that displays account type information in group headings

(PMG-181882)

• Relabeled pie chart setting: In PDF report setup, the pie chart option Pie Chart Setting option for run time package was renamed Pie Chart Setting for Run-Time Options to describe its purpose more clearly. (PMG-181822)

• New investment summary report: A new PDF report titled Investment Summary with Interest Rate was added to the system. The report is similar to the Investment Summary with Maturity Date report, but it adds columns for Purchase Date and Interest Rate and removes the % of Position column. (PMG-181894)

• Asset allocation report with date option: A new PDF report titled Asset Allocation - Target vs. Actual with As of Date is now available. In the report’s options, users can select from among three predefined dates—Previous Month End, Previous Quarter End or Previous Year End—as well as a Custom option for specifying any date. (PMG-214342)

• Additional commands for investment Dynamic Reports: Commands were added to the results lists of several Investment-family Dynamic Reports to enable users to perform actions on the records displayed:

- After running a report in the Position History: Reconciliation category or the Transactions category, users can tag records and delete them using the appropriate Delete command from the Menu button.

- After running a report in the Transactions category, users can tag a record and change its transaction type by selecting Menu > Change Transaction Type.

(PMG-216918)

• Account and position notes in reports: Users can now create Dynamic Reports that display investment account and position notes. This is possible using the new Notes family of Dynamic Reports. (PMG-219337)

• Option to exclude closed accounts from reports: For Account Master-category PDF report, users can now select the new Exclude Closed Accounts report option to prevent the inclusion of any account with a status of Closed (and any positions linked to those accounts). (PMG-238079)

• Additional reports for account groups: The following PDF reports can now be run at the account group level:

- Balance Sheet – Bank Format

- Balance Sheet – Investment Format

- Balance Sheet – Investment Format Summary

(PMG-234792)

• Changes for Do Not Roll Up accounts in reports: Several changes were made to the way in which Investment-category PDF reports display data for accounts and positions that have the Do Not Roll Up option selected:

- Positions are now included regardless of Share Value and regardless of whether a record existed in the Position History table. Previously, positions were included regardless of Position Value and regardless of whether a record existed in the Position History table.

- The Balance Sheet - Investment Format report now displays account owner and type information.

- The Balance Sheet - Investment Format Summary report now displays account owner information.

- Liabilities are no longer included in Balance Sheet reports.

(PMG-252546)

• Incomplete performance data alert for reports: When running performance reports, users now see an alert when time-weighted rate of return (TWRR) performance data for the report’s date range is incomplete and needs to be updated. Users can then run the Performance Calculation utility directly from the alert instead of having to exit the report workflow to run the utility. (PMG-523156)

• Term life renewal dates in summary report: The Policy Summary PDF report now includes renewal date information for term life policies. (PMG-540587)

• New Asset Allocation report options: The report options for the Asset Allocation PDF report were enhanced as follows:

- The Cost column can be excluded by selecting the Do Not Show option from the Cost Options drop-down list.

- The Shares and Price columns can be included by selecting the Shares and Price option.

Because of this enhancement, the Asset Allocation w/o Cost Column report and the Asset Allocation with Shares and Price report are no longer listed as separate reports in SmartOffice; to generate them, users must now run the Asset Allocation report and select the appropriate report options. (PMG-559745)

• Sorting for Summary of Accounts report: Users can now sort the Summary of Accounts PDF report by account type. In the report options, select the Account Type option from the Sort By drop-down list. (PMG-616524)

• Interested party report improvement: For Investment-family Dynamic Reports in the Account - Interested Party category, users can now filter on the First Name and Last Name columns of the Investment Accounts - Primary Contact table. (PMG-640513)

• New column layout for position summary report: To make the layout of the Position Summary w/out Loan Info report more logical, the Maturity Date column was moved to the right of the Purchase Date column. (PMG-640638)

Investment Securities

• Automatic validation after spin-offs, mergers and stock splits: To help ensure that client investment data is up to date, SmartOffice now automatically runs transaction and position/account validation after users run the Spin-Off, Merger and Stock Split commands on security records. Previously, the system ran transaction validation only after the Stock Split command was run. (PMG-159006)

• Ability to exclude securities from performance calculations: On the security Detail content link, an Exclude from Performance option is now available. (PMG-186103)

• Option to download adjusted vs. non-adjusted security prices: The Internet Quote Service utility now gives users the choice between retrieving adjusted or non-adjusted closing prices for securities. (PMG-295515)

• Maturity Date field for Cash and Equivalent-type securities: A Maturity Date field was added to the Detail content link of Cash and Equivalent-type investment security records. In addition, the following changes were made as part of this enhancement:

- For list layouts and reports, the Last Div Date column from the Security - Cash table was renamed Cash and Equivalent Maturity Date.

- The Last Div column from the Security - Cash table was hidden.

(PMG-573094)

• New method for mass-updating Fixed Price option: To update the Fixed Price option for multiple investment securities at once, users must now use the command Menu > Advanced Options > Update Fixed Price. Previously, users were able to update this option with the Mass Modify command, but that capability was removed. (PMG-626750)

• Additional sector, asset class and industry options: For security records, several new system choices were added to the Sector, Asset Class and Industry drop-down lists.

- The new sector choices are Basic Materials, Cash, Comm. Svcs., Cons. Cyclical, Cons. Defense, Energy, Fin. Services, Healthcare, Industrials, Multi-Sector, Not Avail, Other Invest, Real Estate, Stock, Technology and Utilities.

- The new asset class choices are All Cap, Alternative, Alternative Fixed Income, Asset Allocated, Balanced, Bank Loan, Bear Market, Commodities, Equity Arbitrage, Fund of Funds, Global Equity, Hedged Equity, Int'l Developed Mkts, Int'l Emerging Mkts, Intermediate Muni, Large Cap Core, Long Muni, Managed Futures, Market Neutral, Mid-Cap Core, Multi-Strategy, Short Muni and Small-Cap Core.

- The new industry choices (these apply to Stock- and Miscellaneous-type securities only) are Basic Materials, Cash, Cons. Cyclical, Cons. Defense, Fixed Inc, Healthcare, Multi-Sector, Not Avail, Real Estate, Stock and Utilities.

(PMG-647177)

Investment Validation

• Smart Validation: For offices that use on-access validation, the new Smart Validation feature improves system efficiency while delivering more up-to-date validation results. The feature works as follows:

- On-access and manual validation now occur only for those contacts whose investment account/position/transaction data has changed. Previously, contacts could be validated even when their investment data was unchanged.

- When a user accesses a contact whose investment data has been modified, SmartOffice now triggers validation if the contact was last validated more than one hour prior. This is an improvement over the 11-hour time window in previous versions.  

For troubleshooting purposes, users can temporarily disable Smart Validation using the new Smart Validation check box in the Policies/Investments area of User Preferences. Disabling the feature allows the user to validate contacts even if the system has not flagged them as having modified investment data. If Smart Validation is disabled, the system automatically re-enables it after 30 minutes.

Enterprise customers with access to their SmartOffice server configurations can choose whether to enable Smart Validation and customize its behavior. The following lines in the server config.xml file control these settings:

   true

   com.ezdata.cdsportal.data.smartvalidation.SmartValidationService

   10

   30

   60

  false

The element specifies how often (in minutes) the system tries to re-enable Smart Validation for users who have disabled it. The element defines how long (in minutes) Smart Validation will remain disabled for a user before the system can automatically re-enable it. The element defines the time period since a contact’s last validation (in minutes) during which on-access validation will not be triggered. The element specifies whether the Validate command in SmartOffice validates only records that have changed (true) or whether the command validates records regardless of whether they have changed (false). (PMG-159059, PMG-596240, PMG-688448)

• Automatic validation of account groups: Account groups are now automatically validated when any of their linked investment accounts are validated. (PMG-588520)

• Improved transaction validation: Running investment validation at the contact, account or position level now also validates position transactions. Previously, transactions could only be validated manually on the Position Transactions content link. To conserve system resources, SmartOffice validates only those transactions that have been modified since their last validation. (PMG-618199)

Performance Calculations

• Contact-level global performance calculations: Global performance calculations (accessible from Investments > Investment Performance Validation) now include contact-level performance. Previously, global calculations applied only to account-level performance. (PMG-207913)

• Exclude from Performance last modification date: Users can now easily see when the Exclude from Performance option was last changed for accounts linked to an account group or household. A new field called Exclude from Performance checkbox last modified was added to the account group Group Performance content link and the household Performance content link. In addition, if the date is later than the Last Updated Date field, a message now informs the user that performance calculations need to be run again. (PMG-243173)

• New load formula for calculating weighted additions: A new formula for load (and for Calendar Days) is now available that can be used for any month of the time-weighted rate of return (TWRR) calculation, including the month the position is purchased and the month the position is liquidated. Load (for calculating weighted additions and weighted income) = CD – D + 1 / CD, where CD is the total number of days in the month, and D is the date. (PMG-250094)

• Performance detail improvements: The layout of the recently redesigned Performance Detail dialog box was refined as follows:

- Fields and section headings were center-aligned.

- Several fields were reordered to present data more logically.

- The Shares field was renamed Month-End Shares.

- The Price field was renamed Month-End Price.

- A box was placed around the performance calculation formula to set if off from the surrounding data.

- The Account Index field was renamed Index with Income.

(PMG-300403)

• Expanded access to performance calculations: The Performance Calculations command is now available on the contact Account Groups tab (on the List content link) and on the Account Groups List (Investments > Account Groups). (PMG-386763)

• Improved monthly performance calculations: The accuracy of performance calculations was improved for months containing the initial purchase of a position or the liquidation of a position. This improvement applies to calculations at the contact, household, account and account group levels. As a result of this enhancement, the aggregate returns displayed at the bottom of time-weighted rate of return performance reports are now more accurate. (PMG-389419)

• Enhanced confirmation for Exclude from Performance option: Changing the Exclude from Performance option on an investment account, subaccount or position now displays an enhanced confirmation message. The message explains that, if the user proceeds with the change, the user must also run performance calculations to ensure that returns are presented accurately. Previously, the system ran performance calculations automatically. (PMG-537116)

• Improved performance report warning: The message that appears when a user runs a performance report and performance data needs to be updated was reworded to improve clarity. (PMG-559005)

• Streamlined handling of negative share exclusions: To improve performance when running time-weighted rate of return calculations, SmartOffice no longer checks for positions with negative share values when the Exclude from Performance option is selected at the security, account or position level. (PMG-561980)

SmartView for Clients

• Sign-in improvements for SmartView for Clients: When an advisor’s client enters incorrect information into the SmartView for Clients sign-in page, the error message informing the user of the problem now displays on the sign-in page itself. Previously, the error message flashed on the screen and then disappeared, sometimes before the user could read it. In addition, if the user enters spaces before or after his or her user name or password, the system now automatically trims those spaces before validating the information. (PMG-175019)

• Automatic redirect on sign-out: In SmartView for Clients Setup, a new Logout URL field enables the administrator to specify a Web address that clients will be redirected to automatically after they sign out. (PMG-251492)

Resolved Issues

General

• When selecting Investments > Reconciliation from the side menu and then trying to perform a search, users were being signed out of SmartOffice. This issue was resolved. (PMG-243726)

• Investment Dashboards were removed from SmartOffice, and the related portlets are no longer available for addition to home page tabs. (PMG-253020)

Asset Allocation

• When a user edited an existing asset allocation model, SmartOffice was creating a new model with the same name and the new definition instead of updating the original model’s definition. This issue was resolved. (PMG-494480)

Investment Accounts

• An issue with customizing the layout of the Investment Account List was resolved. When users searched for the User column to add to the list, more than one User column was displaying in the search results. (PMG-144194).

• When run from a contact list with multiple contacts selected, Account Master-category PDF reports were not displaying records sorted alphabetically by contact name. This issue was resolved. (PMG-184991)

• On the Group Detail content link of an account group, users were encountering an error when they tried to enter decimal values in the Numeric1 and Numeric2 custom fields and then tried to save the changes. The changes now save correctly. (PMG-196752)

• The system was improperly allowing users to add investment positions to personal holdings (e.g., bank accounts, real estate, personal property, notes receivable) from the results lists of Dynamic Reports and regular searches. This issue was resolved through the following changes:

- On the Account Positions tab of any personal holding, the command Menu > New ‘Investment Positions’ record is no longer available.

- In Notes-category Dynamic Report results, users can no longer click an entry in the Account Name column.

 (PMG-235134)

• On the Investment Account List, an issue that prevented the Update Initial Performance Date utility from working properly for some investment accounts was resolved. (PMG-264067)

• In new account groups, index records added on the Group Performance content link were not appearing in the Index List. This issue was resolved. (PMG-276852)

• On the Account Detail content link, the Interested Parties list was displaying names only for those records that were linked to contact records. This issue was resolved. (PMG-295255)

• Several Menu commands that were missing from the advisor Investment Accounts tab were restored. (PMG-298784)

• In the Deleted Records area of the system, when users displayed a list of deleted investment accounts and then customized the list layout to add any column, duplicate entries were appearing for some accounts. This issue was resolved. (PMG-298787)

• While customizing the list layouts of certain account and position lists, users were finding that the Account # column was mislabeled “ssHeadAccountNumber.” The correct label was restored. (PMG-306630)

• Issues affecting the account group Group Performance content link were resolved:

- The Index List was blank even when index records were added.

- Some users were unable to add index records.

(PMG-340253)

• When a permanently deleted investment account was the primary account for an account group, the entire account group was also being deleted. To prevent this behavior, the system now automatically unlinks such accounts from any account groups, and another account in the group is assigned as the primary account. (PMG-343342)

• Several issues affecting account groups were resolved:

- When modifying a PDF report set containing investment accounts or account groups, users were able to add the same accounts and account groups multiple times to the same set.

- The Menu > List Options > Export List command was missing from the Account Groups List.

- When users clicked Investments on the side menu and pointed to the Account Groups item, the help text that appeared was incorrect.

(PMG-326735)

• Several issues with account groups were resolved:

- From the global Account Groups List, when users navigated to the Detail content link of a group and then tried to save the group with a blank Primary Account field, SmartOffice was displaying the message, “Your action cannot be completed.”

- From the contact Account Groups tab, when users navigated to a group’s Group Accounts content link and unlinked all accounts, the system was taking the user back to a blank List content link.

- From the contact Account Groups tab, when users navigated to a group’s Group Performance content link, the Menu > Add Account to Account Group command was not working.

- On the contact Account Groups tab, selecting Menu > Add Account to Account Group when the contact had no investment accounts was producing two messages prompting the user to select a record first.

(PMG-473157)

• Several issues with merging investment records were resolved:

- After the Merge Duplicate Accounts command was run, accounts with the same account number were not merging, and source accounts were not being deleted after being merged with target accounts. In addition, the text that appeared in the progress bar was incorrect.

- After the Merge Duplicate Positions command was run, the status of the source position was automatically changing to Closed.

- When the Merge Non Duplicate Accounts command was run, no message was appearing to inform the user than duplicate positions in the merged account can be removed using the Merge Duplicate Positions command.

(PMG-506928)

• Two issues with adding accounts to account groups were resolved:

- When an account group contained no accounts, adding an account using the Menu > Add Account to Account Group command on the group Detail content link was not updating the group’s Primary Account field.

- The Menu > Add Account to Account Group command was missing from the Group Accounts content link.

(PMG-536321)

• On the Group Detail content link of an account group, the Primary Account field was changing to reflect the most recently linked account in some instances. This issue was resolved. (PMG-547317)

• Several issues with account lists were resolved:

- After selecting the Menu > Add Account to Account Group command on the Global Account Group List, users were being presented with a list of all investment accounts instead of a search dialog box allowing them to quickly find a specific account.

- Whenever a list of investment accounts appeared in any dialog box, the Next, Previous and View More hyperlinks were missing, and all accounts were being displayed at once.

(PMG-548332)

• In the Account Groups section of the Account Detail content link, selecting the Options > Performance Calculations command was producing a “failed to load object” error. The command was removed. (PMG-548344)

• When customizing the column layout of the Interested Parties list in an investment account record, users who tried to add the Index List column from the Account Performance table were encountering a “failed to load object” error. This issue was resolved by removing Account Performance from the list of tables available for use when customizing the Interested Parties list. (PMG-552758)

• The system was not allowing an investment account record to be saved when the Open Date field was blank. This issue was resolved. (PMG-561642)

• Several issues affecting the Group Positions content link of account groups were resolved:

• The Validate Tagged Positions command was not working.

• When trying to use the Mass Modify command, users were encountering an error stating, “No column on this list can be mass modified.”

• The Relink Position to Another Account command was not working.

• Users were encountering errors when they tried to run PDF reports.

• For variable annuity positions, clicking the Subaccounts sub-content link was displaying the position’s details instead of its subaccounts.

• Users were encountering issues when trying to delete positions from the list.

(PMG-568484)

Investment Positions

• When the Canceled/Reversed option was selected for a Buy transaction, the Available column in the transaction list was displaying a value instead of displaying 0.00. The column now correctly reflects the canceled/reversed status of the transaction. (PMG-159484)

• On the Position Transactions content link, the Change Transaction Type command was displaying as “changeTransType.” The label was corrected. (PMG-165269)

• A “failed to load object” error that occurred when the Shares column was removed from the subaccount list of a variable annuity position record was resolved. (PMG-256981)

• When a user opened a Sell transaction on the Transaction List, the wrong dialog box was opening, preventing the user from editing the transaction. The system now opens the correct dialog box. (PMG-289143)

• An issue that prevented users from merging non-duplicate investment positions was resolved. (PMG-295141)

• The Morningstar Export utility was not exporting investment data when users accessed it from the contact Investment Positions tab. The utility now works correctly. (PMG-303452)

• An investment position whose liquidation date was the same as the From date of a Performance-category PDF report was being improperly included in the report. This issue was resolved. (PMG-342263)

• When the number of investment position records in an office was a multiple of 1,000, running reconciliation was returning a “processing canceled” error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-346764)

Investment Reports

• Interested parties on investment accounts were not being listed in Account - Interested Party-category Dynamic Reports when the parties were not linked to SmartOffice contact records. This issue was resolved so that interested parties are now included whether or not a linked contact exists. Reports now draw this data from the Contact Name column in the Contact Investment Account table. (PMG-141293)

• An issue that occurred when the user ran an Investment-category PDF report for a household was resolved. When the report was sorted by investment name and contained a pie chart, the pie chart was displaying only one investment name and was displaying an incorrect value. (PMG-175553)

• An error that occurred when users tried to run the TWRR Investment Performance Summary PDF report was resolved. (PMG-179663)

• In the Asset Allocation - Target vs. Actual PDF report, improper actual values were displaying for asset classes whose names exceeded one line. (PMG-184064)

• A column called Applicable In was removed from the system after being inadvertently added to the PDF Report List that is accessible through Setup > Report Setup. (PMG-201824)

• An issue that prevented the Investment Performance Summary PDF report from displaying liquidated positions in the body of report was resolved. (PMG-216090)

• The Exclude Positions with Negative Share Balance report option was restored to Investment-category PDF reports after issues related to that option were resolved. The following issues were occurring when the option was cleared:

- Reports were ignoring source-of-data restrictions specified in Report Setup.

- Reports were ignoring the Include Held Away Assets report option.

- Reports were not displaying data per the specified As of Date when a position history record had a zero or blank share value.

- Reports were displaying data from position transactions when roll-up options were set to Current Position Value and Do Not Roll Up.

- Position records with no position history entries were not displaying when the As of Date field in the report options was blank.

- Policy records were not being included in reports.

- The Cost column was displaying a value of zero instead of the actual value per the As of Date selected in the report options.

In addition, the Exclude Positions with Negative Share Balance option was available for the Investment Summary with Liquidated Positions despite not being applicable to that report. This issue was also resolved. (PMG-217345, PMG-217848)

• The Quantity column of the Position Summary PDF report was displaying values to only two decimal places. The report was corrected. (PMG-230610)

• Two issues with running Investment-category PDF reports at the account group level were resolved:

- The Investment Summary with Liquidated Positions report was displaying positions from accounts with a Closed status.

- Other Investment-category reports were displaying positions from accounts with a Closed status when run with the Exclude Positions with Negative Share Balance report option selected.

(PMG-233109)

• On the Investment Accounts tab of a contact, when users tagged multiple accounts and then ran any Investment-category PDF report with the Include Address & Phone# option selected, the report was displaying the contact’s address and phone number multiple times for each account. The report was corrected. (PMG-233132)

• An Exclude Positions with Negative Share Balance check box that was inadvertently included in the report options of several Investment-category PDF reports was removed. (PMG-233854)

• For Account Master-category PDF reports, the As of Date field in the report options is now blank by default. This change was made to resolve an issue that users were encountering when attempting to make those reports display values for accounts that had the Do Not Roll Up option selected. (PMG-238143)

• An error that occurred when users ran the Balance Sheet – Bank Format PDF report was resolved. (PMG-244346)

• Investment PDF reports run at the household level were displaying an incorrect total for the Current Value column when sorted by household member. This issue was resolved. (PMG-246700)

• An issue with the Asset Allocation report was resolved. When the Initial Cost option was selected and the initial cost was null, the report was calculating the purchase cost from the transaction history using transactions dated after the report’s “as of” date. Now, if the initial cost is null, the report reflect that it is null. (PMG-247549)

• On the PDF Report List (Setup > Report Setup), when users selected Menu > Report Disclaimers, the menu in the Disclaimers dialog box contained two options for creating a disclaimer. The duplicate command was removed. (PMG-249238)

• Several issues with investment PDF reports were resolved:

- The Balance Sheet - Investment Format report was excluding variable annuities.

- The Investment Summary with Purchase Date report was improperly displaying “No Data Available” in the Current Value column for life and annuity records.

- Reports were displaying an incorrect Cost Value when run with any sorting option except Holding Type.

(PMG-249286)

• Changes were made to the system to ensure that selecting the Asset Allocation Member option on the Position Detail content link includes that position in the Asset Allocation - Target vs. Actual PDF report. (PMG-250212)

• An issue that caused incorrect subtotals and totals for the Current Value and % of Assets columns in Investment-category PDF reports was resolved. The issue was due to the totals being calculated based on the non-rounded values in the SmartOffice database instead of the rounded values displayed in the report. The totals are now calculated based on those rounded values. In addition, the following changes were included as part of this solution:

- For accounts having only one position and the Do not roll up option enabled, the reports display “No Data Available” in the Current Value column, and the Total and Subtotal rows are blank across all columns. For accounts having any positions and the Transactions or Current Position Value roll-up option enabled, the Subtotal and Total rows reflect the subtotals and totals of the positions.

- When any account linked to the contact has the Do not roll up option enabled, policies display “No Data Available” in the reports.

- For variable annuity positions, the Purchase Date column now reflects the earliest subaccount purchase date, whether the subaccount is active or closed.

- An issue that caused incorrect values to display in the Cost Value column for annuity policies was corrected.

- For holdings other than variable annuities, personal holdings and policies, the Quantity column now displays “N/A.”

(PMG-254859)

• When a policy or investment account had multiple interested parties with the role of Owner, the Household Statement - By Owner PDF report was including that policy or account multiple times in the Grand Total Current Value calculation. The report now counts that policy or account only once in the grand total but continues to list it under each owner’s section. A footnote was also added to the report to make this clear. (PMG-257730)

• Users running custom performance PDF reports were encountering the error, “The file is damaged and could not be repaired.” This issue was resolved. (PMG-263274)

• The TWRR Investment Performance Summary PDF report was including canceled fees in the total Withdrawals amount at the end of the report. This issue was resolved. (PMG-273123)

• In the pie charts in the Asset Allocation - Target vs. Actual PDF report, pie slice labels that were longer than the available space were being truncated from the beginning rather than the end. This issue was resolved. (PMG-273141)

• Time-weighted rate of return (TWRR) performance reports were displaying investment positions whose purchase dates were after the report’s date range. The reports were also displaying positions that had been liquidated before the selected report’s date range. These issues were resolved. (PMG-278073)

• Several issues related to pie charts in Investment-category PDF reports were resolved:

- Pie charts were displaying incorrect values.

- Pie charts were missing from Asset Allocation reports sorted by asset class when the first asset class position (alphabetically) was set to not roll up transactions for validation.

(PMG-279574)

• Deleted accounts and positions were being included in Transaction- and Performance-category PDF reports as well as the Asset Allocation content link of contact records. This issue was resolved. (PMG-285009)

• In some instances, liabilities were not appearing in the Balance Sheet - Investment Format and Balance Sheet - Bank format PDF reports. This issue was resolved. (PMG-296212)

• Files uploaded to the Letters/Documents content link of an investment position record were not appearing in the position’s Document List. However, when the user viewed the Letters/Documents content link of the associated contact record, the uploaded files were appearing in the contact’s Document List. This issue was resolved. (PMG-298915)

• In asset allocation PDF reports, a layout issue was causing large total values to exceed their column widths and overlap other totals. This issue was resolved. (PMG-299768)

• Two changes were made to resolve an issue with the TWRR Investment Performance Summary PDF report, which was displaying a -100% return for liquidations that occurred on the first day of the month:

- The Weighting (W) formula was changed to W = (CD−D)/CD. Previously, it was W = (CD−D+1)/CD.

- When Average Investment = 0, time-weighted rate of return is now zero. Previously, time-weighted rate of return was set to zero when Average Investment was less than or equal to zero.

(PMG-300313)

• Several issues with time-weighted rate of return (TWRR) reports were resolved:

- The Performance Summary of Accounts report was displaying incorrect values in the Annualized % Return column.

- The Yearly Review report was displaying incorrect values in month-specific % Return columns.

- The Annualized Return Report was incorrectly displaying “N/A” in the % 1 Year, % 3 Year, % 5 Year, % 7 Year and % 10 Year columns when run at the investment account and account group levels.

(PMG-303350)

• In Investment-category PDF reports, active positions were showing a zero value when the investment account’s roll-up setting was Current Value. This issue was resolved. (PMG-305769)

• When running Asset Allocation PDF reports, users who selected Save Settings in the report options dialog box were finding that the Subaccounts option under Variable Annuity was not being saved. This issue was resolved. (PMG-309691)

• When running Investment-category PDF reports for account groups, users were unable to edit the Holding Types section in the report’s options. These options are now editable. (PMG-316827)

• Users who ran the Balance Sheet - Investment Format PDF report were finding that the Account Type column was blank for annuity policies. This occurred when the report was run with the Exclude Positions with Negative Share Balance option selected. The report now properly displays the account type for annuities. (PMG-329984)

• In certain cases, Balance Sheet PDF reports were including positions with negative share balances, even when the reports were run with the Exclude Positions with Negative Share Balance option selected. This issue was resolved. (PMG-352285)

• The Missing Prices utility was not working when investment reports were run at the account and account group levels. This issue was resolved. (PMG-359494)

• An error that occurred when users ran the following PDF reports was resolved:

- Holding Statement

- By Primary Contact

- Holding Statement with Liabilities

(PMG-366507)

• Several issues with investment PDF report options were resolved:

- In the Holding Types section, when users selected the Summary option under Variable Annuity, the choice was not being saved and was reverting to the default Subaccount option.

- In the Pie Chart Options section, when users selected the Maximum of 10 slices option, the choice was not being saved and was reverting to the default Merge slices Less Than option.

- The Include Cover Page option was not saving when it was selected at the time the report was run.

(PMG-393413)

• When run at the household level, investment PDF reports sorted by household member were displaying pie chart values for only the first contact record in the report. This issue was resolved so that reports sorted by household member no longer offer the option to include a pie chart. (PMG-440040)

• An issue that occurred when a custom asset class was defined for a security record stored in the System office was resolved. In the local office, when users generated Investment-category PDF reports sorted by asset class, the pie slice labels for Equity Assets and Fixed Assets were being appended with the text “Liabilities / + Tax.” (PMG-509805)

• Users were encountering a “failed to load object” error when they tried to create or view a report option setup on the Report Setup page of a Performance-category PDF report. This issue was resolved. (PMG-558348)

• The Investment Summary with Maturity Date PDF report was including positions with negative share values even when the Exclude Positions with Negative Share Balance option was selected in the report options. This issue was resolved. (PMG-561309)

• Customers who use Crystal Reports with SmartOffice were finding that the fonts in pie charts were different compared to previous SmartOffice releases. The fonts were restored. (PMG-561509)

• An issue with the Asset Allocation - Target vs. Actual PDF report was causing values in the % Target Allocation column to differ from those shown in the Target Allocation pie chart. This issue was resolved. (PMG-568104)

• Two issues with asset allocation PDF reports were resolved:

- The reports were not properly displaying share values containing 10 digits to the left of the decimal point.

- The Quantity column heading was changing to Shares when users ran the reports with the Shares and Price report option selected.

(PMG-568843)

• An issue that was causing incorrect gain/loss percentage values to appear in investment PDF reports was resolved. (PMG-573465)

Investment Securities

• The Internet Quote Service tool was displaying various error messages when users tried to retrieve prices for the Dow Jones Industrial index (^DJI) using Yahoo!. Because Yahoo! no longer provides that data, the tool now reports that no prices are available. (PMG-153371)

• In the dialog box that opens when a user selects the Merge Non-Duplicate Securities command from the Investment Security List, the column filters were not working properly. This issue was resolved. (PMG-200943)    

• The Missing Prices Utility was accepting prices to only two decimal places regardless of security type. This issue was resolved so that the utility now accepts prices having the number of decimal places supported by the security type. (PMG-232462)

• Users who tried to download updated security prices using the Internet Quote Service utility were encountering an error stating that the security symbol was invalid, even when the symbol was correct. This issue was resolved. (PMG-245426)

• Under certain circumstances, users were unable to save changes to an investment security’s name and dividend date information. This issue was resolved. (PMG-272158)

• When using the Internet Quote Service tool to retrieve a security’s price for a specific day, users were encountering an “insert/updated failed” error if a price was not available for that day. The tool now indicates that the price is not available and allows the user to close the dialog box without error. (PMG-276165)

• When users tried to enter the same CUSIP for two or more subaccounts in a variable annuity security record, the system was displaying a “failed to load object” error. The system now displays a proper error message informing users that the CUSIP already exists. (PMG-278707)

• An issue that occurred when users tried to update the prices of multiple investment security records at once was resolved. When using the Internet Quote Service feature to retrieve prices from Yahoo!, users were finding that mutual fund, stock and corporate bond securities with special characters in their names were being updated with incorrect prices. (PMG-279683)

• The Menu > Advanced Options > Spin-Off command was not working when it was run from the Investment Security List. The command now works properly. (PMG-290903)

• An issue that was causing incorrect time-weighted rate of return calculations for blended indices was resolved. (PMG-291370)

• An issue that prevented the Missing Prices utility from working correctly for variable annuity subaccounts was resolved. When the position purchase date was after the initial performance date, the utility was asking for prices starting with the month-end prior to the initial performance date. The utility now asks for prices starting with the month-end prior to the position purchase date. (PMG-294914)

• The Missing Prices utility was producing an error when handling investment security records containing more than 2,000 price history entries. The error was resolved. (PMG-302327)

• The Refresh Index Return command was failing when it was used on a large number of blended index records. This issue was resolved. (PMG-317318)

• Running the Missing Prices utility for an investment security was returning an error stating, “No missing price was found for given date range,” even when prices were actually missing for the specified date range. This issue was resolved. (PMG-345554)

• Several issues with accessing and modifying investment security records were resolved:

- Users were encountering an “insert/update failed” error when accessing a security record whose CUSIP field contained no value.

- Users were encountering an “insert/update failed” error when trying to add a subaccount to a new variable annuity security.

- On newly created variable annuity security records, the subaccount Detail sub-content link was missing.

- On newly created variable annuity security records, the page heading was displaying the word “New” without the security type.

(PMG-424082)

• The system was not allowing multiple subaccounts linked to the same variable annuity security to have the same name. This issue was resolved. (PMG-560001)

Performance Calculations

• When time-weighted rate of return (TWRR) performance calculations were run at the account level, total return for accounts was decreasing when the account had only one position and the position had been liquidated. This issue was resolved so that total return in this scenario remains static for any “through” date after the liquidation date. (PMG-153441)

• Issues with time-weighted rate of return (TWRR) performance calculations that resulted in null or incorrect liquidation dates not being corrected in certain cases were resolved. (PMG-156038)

• When a position was purchased and liquidated in the same month, the time-weighted rate of return was being calculated incorrectly. This issue was resolved. (PMG-169335)

• When the Internet Quote Service was used to insert missing security prices during performance calculations, prices were not being inserted properly when a large number of records was selected. This issue was resolved. (PMG-185244)

• The method used to calculate time-weighted rate of return performance for index records was changed to resolve several issues with incorrect calculations. (PMG-208509)

• When performed at the contact level, time-weighted rate of return performance calculations were not always reflecting recent changes to SmartOffice that excluded partial months. This issue was resolved. (PMG-212248)

• Time-weighted rate of return performance calculations were modified so that, for the month in which a position is purchased and the month the position is liquidated, the rate of return will be calculated such that the period is the full month, not the partial month during which the position was active. For example, in the month in which the position is purchased, the position’s Beginning Market Value will be zero (i.e., the market value prior to the initial purchase), and in the month the position is liquidated, the Ending Market Value will be zero (i.e., the market value after liquidation). In addition, the initial purchase and the liquidating transaction will be included in Net Additions and, consequently, Flow (since Flow = Net Additions + Income Received). (PMG-212248)

• When time-weighted rate of return (TWRR) performance calculations were run using the Last Performance Date option, SmartOffice was starting calculations from the wrong date. This issue was resolved. (PMG-235343)

• When an investment account was excluded from performance calculations and, as a result, performance records for other accounts linked to the contact were recalculated, the system was not checking for missing prices on those accounts. This issue was resolved. (PMG-241458)

• Investment accounts with the Held Away option selected were being excluded from performance calculations at the contact, household and account group levels. This issue was resolved so that held-away accounts are now included in performance calculations at all levels. However, these accounts can still be excluded using the Exclude from Performance option on the Account Detail content link. (PMG-254874)

• When index records at the contact level were different from index records at the account level, the Missing Prices Utility was not including index records at both the account and contact levels. This issue was resolved. (PMG-254945)

• The Specific Date option was removed from the Run Performance Calculations From dialog box. This change was made to prevent users from running calculations from a date that may result in gaps between monthly time-weighted rate of return records and cause problems when running performance reports. (PMG-263547)

• An issue that occurred when the Missing Prices Utility was run during performance calculations was resolved. The utility was not starting its price search from the correct date under certain circumstances. (PMG-278163)

• The formula for calculating time-weighted rate of return (TWRR) was modified to more accurately consider accrued income. This included a change to the TWRR formula itself as well as a change to the calculation of the accrued income value. In addition, the transaction types considered for net additions and income received were updated. (PMG-279331)

• For the following PDF reports, the period used for annualization at the position level was corrected. Instead of using the date of purchase/liquidation, SmartOffice now uses the month:

- TWRR Yearly Review

- TWRR Annualized Return Report

- TWRR Top 10 Holdings

- TWRR Performance Summary of Accounts

In addition, an issue with the TWRR Performance Period-to-Date report was resolved. The report was incorrectly displaying “N/A” values for position returns at the investment account and account group levels while displaying proper values at the contact level. (PMG-288578)

• An issue affecting the Internet Quote Service utility when it was run during performance calculations was resolved. When the utility’s Price Frequency field was set to Latest and no price was available, the utility was adding a random price on the security’s Detail content link and price history instead of returning an N/A result. (PMG-289627)

• When running performance calculations, users were being prompted to download missing prices prior to a position’s purchase date and after its liquidation date. This issue, which occurred when a position’s share value was zero, was resolved. (PMG-293046)

• A correction was made to the performance calculation formula for “Return with Accrued and Received Income.” The “× 100” portion of the formula was missing for accounts and positions (calculations at the contact, household and group level were not affected). (PMG-297835)

• The formula for calculating flow in time-weighted rate of return performance calculations was corrected. The corrected formula is: Flow = Net Additions − Income Received. The formula for weighted flow was also changed: Weighted Flow = Weighted Additions − Weighted Income. (PMG-302943)

• SmartOffice’s method for calculating time-weighted rate of return (TWRR) was tuned to improve accuracy. (PMG-340944)

• An issue that was causing incorrect monthly return calculations was resolved. When no performance record for the previous month existed, the system was setting the beginning market value (BMV) for the current month to zero. With this change, the system now calculates BMV in this scenario as:

BMV = Cumulative shares of current month × price available in price history × price factor of security

(PMG-470837)

• When the average investment for a position was zero for the month, running performance calculations for that position was causing a “processing cancelled” error. This issue was resolved. The system now calculates the time-weighted rate of return for such positions as 0%. (PMG-495352)

• On variable annuity accounts, clearing the Exclude from Performance option on the Account Detail content link was not clearing the same option on all subaccounts. This issue was resolved. In addition, clearing the Exclude from Performance option for an account now clears that option on any linked position, unless that option is selected on the security linked to the position. (PMG-539224)

SmartView for Advisors

• An issue with settings in the Investment Setup section of SmartView for Advisors Setup was resolved. When the Proxy Assignment option was selected from the View Investment Accounts drop-down list and the Display investment account based on investment account advisor list option was also selected, investment accounts that had no advisor linked to them were invisible to advisors. These accounts are now visible. (PMG-205752)

SmartView for Clients

• SmartView for Clients users who tried to upload a document without including a description were encountering the error “Missing 1th parameter.” This message was reworded to instruct users to enter a description. (PMG-248469)